Sherlock: New Zombieland
by rukushaka
Summary: Sherlock wakes up and John is gone. Where is he? Not in England, apparently... Sherlock, John, Greg, and Mycroft go on an Antipodean adventure. No slash. Character-driven. Written for NaNoWriMo; 50k words, 7 chapters, and technically incomplete.
1. Sherlock in London

**National Novel Writing Month November 2012**

**I don't own BBC Sherlock. This story was written as my NaNoWriMo project: it has 7 chapters, 6 of which are in order; the 7th is actually chapter 16 of my outline. It's just over 50,000 words, and technically incomplete, as I do not plan on filling in the missing chapters from 7-15 and 16-?. That said, it's a good read and not half bad for having been written entirely in a month. I hope you enjoy it.**

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Sherlock in London.

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Sherlock surfaced from his Mind Palace, relieved to have sorted the data from their latest bout of cases. Most of it - such as the exact volume and pitch of a yelping four year old female spaniel when she is trapped in a burning house, and the corresponding squeals and sobs of her overly sentimental owner - had gone straight into the trash. There had been a few scraps on traditional uses for plants that could prove useful one day, though, and he had updated his files on Fire: Patterns in the Spread of, and Arson: Motivations behind.

Now, where...?

Ah, good. 221b. Lying full length on the couch.

He stretched slowly, luxuriously, fingers flexing and toes wriggling, still taking advantage of that glorious dark behind the eyes to rest his mind for a moment more. His hand reached out, questing, found the edge of the coffee table, brushed across the surface of it for one, two, three passes before it bumped into his mobile.

There was an edge of anticipation to the air as he brought his hand up in front of his face, inhaling one deep slow breath and releasing it. This was the moment - what would it be? Three missed calls from Lestrade? A spate of murders? Maybe a few texts from John to say he was at the mortuary already and that Sherlock should hurry up because there was something funny going on here and he couldn't make head or tail of it, not that that was any change from usual, but really, John, you're a Doctor, you should at least be able to determine age and cause of death, not to mention you've been flatting with me for long enough that we should be able to add occupation, phobias, marital status, and household pets to that list.

His eyes fluttered open.

The screen was blank, and didn't respond when he tapped it, nor when he swiped a thumb across it, swiped again and again in meaningless patterns, hit the power button, licked it (and John's voice in his head said dryly, "_You do realise that licking something to check for surface acid content is really not very smart, don't you?"_), and finally sent it spinning across the room with a growl.

It was irrefutably flat.

His charger was - where was his charger? - in the bedroom, probably. He glared at the ceiling.

"John."

No reply.

"John, I need you to get my charger. It's in the bedroom."

Nothing. Sherlock slitted his eyes open and glanced around. Oh. That would explain it. John wasn't in the room.

"John!" Louder now, maybe he was up in his bedroom. Possibly in the bathroom, although there was no sound of running water to indicate the shower was going, and John usually showered in the morning, not at - Sherlock glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece - half past two in the afternoon.

Still no reply, no footsteps, nothing.

"_John!_" Where was the man? Was he deaf? Asleep? Maybe - oh. Out at work? How dull.

Sigh. May as well get on with that new experiment, then.

Five minutes later Sherlock was seated at the kitchen table with a box of different blends of wool/cotton/nylon/polyester fabrics in front of him, and was drawing up a chart for testing the durability of each of them when dipped in a dozen different acids, and also flammability depending on various fire starters.

Several materials were violently stricken from the chart.

Four hours after that, he added 'water resistance' to the list.

And then 'warmth when wet' and 'rate of drying'.

A few more fabrics were crossed off.

Another five hours, and 'stab resistance to kitchen knife/serrated knife/harpoon/teeth/human fingernails/stiletto heel' was also added.

And then 'ease of removing blood stains'.

The list narrowed further.

Around four in the morning Sherlock set up a three hour blood/water drip to simulate a shallow wound on one of London's frequent days of fog/mist/drizzle, and took a break.

He was halfway through a variation of Rachmaninov's _Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor _when it occurred to him that he hadn't heard John come in earlier.

Hmm. Odd.

Considering the man was usually (ninety four percent of the time) home by seven pm and always (ninety nine point three percent) in bed by two in the morning, and that if he wasn't he generally (eighty seven percent) told Sherlock where he was going, how long he would be, and when he was planning to be back... this was moderately concerning.

And then Sherlock remembered that his phone was still flat and in an unknown location around the flat from wherever he'd thrown it earlier, and that of course John would have sent a text to say he was _staying over at [insert latest girlfriend here]'s place, will see you tomorrow, don't do too much damage to the flat while I'm gone please. _Sherlock didn't bother opening the sub-section of John's file to find the name of the girl; she'd likely be gone within the week anyway.

He banished the niggle of irritation (and not even under torture would he admit to feeling not quite... himself... without John) and went back to his music. Playing with the usual concentrated smoothness that meant his mind was elsewhere, he made his way steadily through _Trio élégiaque No. 1, _and then continued on to _Trio élégiaque No. 2 in D minor_. Keeping an eye on the clock, he switched to Vivaldi's _Concerto No. 2 in E Flat Major _for some variation, and at six thirty, just as dawn was lighting the sky, moved into Beethoven's _Violin Sonata No. 10 in G major: the Cockcrow. _

With two minutes to go on his experiment, Sherlock placed his violin back on its stand and moved into the kitchen. He very carefully did not cast a glance at the door to see if John was on his way in yet, but he did angle his chair slightly so as to be better able to see into the living room and through the kitchen door onto the landing from the kitchen table.

The experiment was a moderate success. Pure materials, especially pure wool, were the best for both retaining warmth when wet and washing out bloodstains. Mixed blends, depending on exactly which mixes they were, were rubbish at everything, moderately good for water resistance, or excellent at repelling liquids but horrendously bad at retaining warmth no matter if they were wet or dry.

Sherlock recorded the latest findings on his chart, tried to feel some satisfaction at the results, and was halfway through yelling for John before he remembered.

_John's not here._

Which meant he had no-one to share his findings with, no-one to be an audience, no one he could entertain or who would entertain him.

He felt the slight itch of boredom start to creep along his spine.

Half an hour of manic violin playing later (_"It's like you communicate through the violin, Sherlock, in a language far more precise, far more emotional than English. It's fantastic. But when you're not communicating, when you're bored or irritated or plain angry, it's just meaningless noise. Gibberish, if you will."_) there was still the sensation of growing boredom, and he cast yet another glance at the clock and growled.

Eight thirty.

Where on earth was John? He had work in half an hour, if Sherlock's internal memo of his work roster was correct, and if he'd been out the night before he always liked to shower and change clothes before leaving for the day. It was possible he would go straight from the girlfriend's place, of course, he'd done that a few times in the past; but he strongly preferred coming home first so as to use their own bathroom.

In a fit of irritation (definitely not missing John, he'd only been aware that John was gone for the last eighteen hours, and surely that wasn't long enough to start missing somebody in, was it?) he stalked up the stairs and barged into John's bedroom. Maybe the invasion of territory would trip some instinctual sensor in John and he would come tearing home from the girlfriend's place or the clinic or wherever he was to catch Sherlock in the act of poking around his room.

Speaking of John's room...

Sherlock looked around curiously. He hadn't had reason to visit upstairs since John moved in, and it was rather different to the bare room it had been when he had first looked around 221b as an alternative to his Montague Street flat.

The floor was polished wood, the same as Sherlock's own bedroom downstairs. There was a double bed against the wall opposite the door, covered in a thick blue striped duvet and several pillows - he knew that John relished the comfort of a real bed and proper bed linen after his time spent in Afghanistan on thin sleeping pads and scratchy blankets. A chest of drawers was pushed up against the right hand wall, and an ottoman served as a bedside table, also on the right hand side from Sherlock's view; no doubt this allowed John the best access to them, as they would be on his left when he was actually using the bed, and he was left-handed.

There was a built in wardrobe on the left hand wall, and beside it in the corner a small bookshelf. Sherlock cast a cursory glance over it on his way to peer the window. There were a respectable range of genres and periods - even some very nice leather-bound Shakespeares - but nothing stunningly unpredictable for a man of John's age and tastes. He would bet John hadn't read the Shakespeare more than twice since he'd... bought it? No, was given it for a graduation present, of course.

The sash window was a moderate size, probably big enough for someone as slim as Sherlock (_gangly, _said his old sports master's voice mournfully in his head, _all knees and elbows_) to slip through. He thrust the window up and stuck his head out, confirming that he would be able to climb through it at the same time as he looked around for windowsills, fire escapes, and other routes he could use to reach the ground - or to reach this window from the ground, if needed. With a minimum of seven routes plotted, he added them and the window to the file marked Baker Street: 221b: Entry/Exit points, and turned back to John's room.

There wasn't much more to see in John's room: it was fairly boring, really, for all that it had provided a nice diversion. Unfortunately invaded his personal domain hadn't serve its main purpose of bringing John hurtling home to catch him in the act, and in the end it had barely taken up ten minutes of his time.

The boredom was still lurking at the back of his mind, tingling on the tips of his fingers, making him jittery, unable to stand still. Back downstairs and he cast a longing look toward the bedroom, his mind making the _purely_ _theoretical_ journey through the kitchen into his room, turning left toward the wardrobe, sliding the door, removing the false floorboard, taking out the wooden box that sat there, finding the key (from wherever he'd last hidden it before deliberately deleting the location), unlocking the box, lifting out the tourniquet, the syringe, the small bag of white powder...

And then John's voice cut through the haze of craving, clear and sharp and panicked, horrified, disgusted, and Sherlock took a literal step backward with the force of it. _No._

No no no, he mustn't do that, mustn't even think of doing that, not since John looked at him with those deadly serious eyes and promised - not threatened, promised - that if Sherlock ever did drugs again and John found out about it (and he would find out about it, never fear, whether he came home to find Sherlock insensible on the couch or got a call from Greg or suffered a kidnapping from Mycroft so that Big Brother could break the news), he would move out the next day without a single backwards glance.

And so Sherlock had locked into his brain _drugs=endcommand[wipe page, exit program], _and the next time he was in his Mind Palace he had found the tiny sneaking alley that contained all the remembered highs and the rush and the sheer ecstasy, and had planted enough semtex to collapse the entire block (and even the memory of touching the explosives was enough to make his skin crawl, and he remembered thinking _good, destroy this, destroy it now before it destroys us_) and had blown it sky-high and set a high fence around the rubble.

But now the rubble was shifting, slow, insidious, overgrown with grass and weeds yet struggling to rebuild itself, always, always looking for a creeping way back in, back to life. He was clean, he had been clean for a good few years now, but he'd not actually destroyed the memory of it until John. Oh, he'd deleted the withdrawal, the shakes and the fevers and vomiting, that wasn't anything anyone wanted to remember; but the remembered ecstasy had stayed, always, always at the back of his mind, the back of his skin, itching, itching, itching. And then there was John with his intent eyes, his deadly promise of _if you do this, I am gone_, and Sherlock had decided _enough, this is enough,_ and had finally deleted (_exploded, blown up, detonated, erupted, destroyed, demolished, razed to the ground_) that creeping alley of memories and sensations.

Except it wasn't as utterly destroyed as he'd thought.

This was bad.

Deliberately, purposefully, he strode through the kitchen to his doorway, halted for a moment in indecision ("_Don't even think about it, Sherlock,"_ ordered John's voice in his mind) and reached out hastily to pull his bedroom door shut. It wouldn't stop him, not if he was fully intent on following that course of action, but the cliche _out of sight, out of mind_ had, in the past, gone some way toward easing the incessant craving. It was with this in mind that he slid the kitchen doors shut, then remembered the side door into the kitchen from the landing and went around to the head of the stairs to pull it closed before retreating to the relative safety of the living room.

Alright. No kitchen meant no experiments. The violin would be a good distraction, but he wasn't in the mood for mindless repetition of the works of other composers, nor for variations on their themes. This left original composition; and it was strange to think that of all the talents he could have discovered having in common with John, it was writing. Of course, John's writing was a fairly inaccurate, not particularly stimulating style of English, whereas Sherlock chose to write in a far more subtle and exacting musical style, but it was a shared talent nonetheless.

Very well then. Sherlock readied the violin, tucked a pencil behind his ear, and let his mind drift as he gazed out the window at the nine o'clock traffic crawling past on the street below. He would start in B flat major. B for Boredom.

And he grinned.

Two hours of _B flat and hold and E natural, E flat, D, change key, take the scale up to G,_ later there was a satisfying six pages of sheet music written, and the creeping crawling itch had died down to the point where he felt more than safe returning to his experiment in the kitchen. He had narrowed the list of materials down to six, most of them being wool or wool blends, and was planning to test them in the acids again, using various mixes.

Start with the nine parts sulphuric to one part hydrochloric, then, and work from there.

The first fabric, a pure merino wool in charcoal grey, took a full fifteen seconds to dissolve completely. Impressive.

The second, a 80:20 wool/polyester blend, took a rather less impressive six seconds. This was crossed off the list.

The third and fourth variations, both cotton/wool blends, were slightly better, taking nine and twelve seconds to dissolve, respectively. The pure merino was still the most acid resistant overall.

The fifth fabric, a different wool/polyester blend, was just entering its eighth second when Sherlock reached behind him for another flask of acid, fumbled slightly as he kept one hand on the stopwatch and both eyes on the dissolving fabric, and upended the flask all over the metal bench top.

Usually spilling a flask would be cause for a irritated sigh and a yell of "John!", but this flask contained concentrated hydrochloric acid, and the bench happened to be topped with aluminium. Sherlock was a chemist (_"Any good?" "Very good."_) and under File: Chemistry on his hard drive, there was Section 3: Interactions, followed by Section 3.4: Acid-Metal and Section 3.4.7 Hydrochloric-Aluminium. Section 3.4.7 did not end well, and the greater the quantities used, the greater the reaction would be.

Sherlock made a dive for the living room and slid the door shut behind him just as the thin layer of oxide on the bench dissolved, leaving it at the mercy of the acid. There was a moment of dead silence, followed by a small explosion and a profusion of violent hissing and fizzing. Sherlock grimaced. John would not be impressed at the destruction of the bench, his experiment was completely ruined, and the kitchen would be unusable for the next six hours or so until enough of the hydrogen gas had cleared. He could smell it even on this side of the closed doors: the clouds of H2 rising from the spill would be immense. More than a bit not good. And there went his distraction. Blast.

He snarled wordlessly at the ceiling. What to do now, what to do now...

Ah. That could work.

The next ten minutes were spent in a manic search for his mobile. Couch, no. Coffee table, no. Mantelpiece, no. Where on earth had he put it? Bookshelf, no. Other bookshelf, no. Table between the windows, no.

His chair, side, side, back, under the cushion, no. John's chair, side, other side, yes! Finally! Sherlock held it aloft triumphantly before slipping it into his jacket pocket. He'd charge it at the Yard.

Foregoing his coat in deference to the warmth of late summer, Sherlock slipped down the stairs and out the door of 221b, and thrust an arm out for a taxi. The unassuming jacket didn't have the same eye-catching ability as his coat, and it was a few minutes before one pulled up.

"Where to, mate?" The cabbie was in his late thirties with brown hair.

Sherlock glanced at the I.D. card on the dash as he slid into the back seat; after that first case with John, he'd never taken a cabbie at face value again. Thomas Henderson, 39 years old, blue eyes, crows feet and a number of laughter lines. Long term relationship - no, married, there was his wedding ring flashing into sight as he rested a hand on the wheel. Heterosexual, no immediate signs of either religion or secularism, three children. Good.

He locked the data into his short term memory bank and replied, "New Scotland Yard," stubbornly refraining from adding a polite "thank you" in response to a frown from his internal John.

The cab felt distinctly empty with only himself and the driver in it, and Sherlock was relieved when they pulled up at the Met. He stopped in at the coffee shop on the ground floor to buy two coffees: a long black with two sugars for himself and a latte for Lestrade. It was coming up to eleven o'clock and he would be grateful for the caffeine.

Taking the stairs ("_I'm not Mycroft, John; taking the elevator is sheer laziness._") he was soon at the right floor. He ignored Sergeant Donovan's eye roll as he wound his way through the desks in the outer area and strode into Lestrade's office unceremoniously.

"Coffee."

The Detective Inspector looked up from his paperwork as Sherlock set the cups on the desk and dropped into the chair opposite.

"Well good morning to you too," Lestrade grinned, "and to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Are you bored already?"

Sherlock grimaced, "I might have exploded the kitchen a bit."

There was a bark of laughter from the older man, and a few heads turned their way from out in the main room. Sherlock nudged the door shut with a gentle kick.

"Oh, John's not going to be happy with you." Lestrade picked up the coffee cup and removed the lid, inhaling the first great rush of steam. The tension dissipating from his frame was almost tangible, and he sat back with a contented sigh. "Go on, then. How'd you do it?"

With anyone else (except John, John was always the exception) Sherlock would have been affronted by the frank enjoyment of his blunder; but Lestrade... well, Lestrade was somehow different. By turns stern and boyish, the man could go from paternal to conspiratorial in the blink of an eye, and Sherlock knew that his enjoyment was balanced by a willingness, a desire, even, to truly help in whatever way the Inspector (_colleague, friend, mentor_) deemed best.

"Hydrochloric acid," he admitted, "on the aluminium bench top. I was busy keeping an eye on something else and ended up tipping the flask over."

There was a disbelieving look from Lestrade, and then a slight narrowing of the eyes as he thought it over, "But surely there would be a layer of oxide protecting the metal?"

"Mmm, yes. There was, but it was concentrated acid. Highly concentrated, as it turned out. More than strong to eat through the aluminium oxide."

"Ah," a moment's silence as he digested this, and then, "I haven't done chemistry since my high school days - what happened next?"

Sherlock sipped his coffee and met Lestrade's eyes, not quite managing to suppress the twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "Oh, not much. The hydrochloric acid ate through the oxide layer and bumped into the aluminium. Cue aluminium chloride, a mild explosion, some prolonged bubbling and fizzing, and the liberal production of hydrogen gas."

"Hydrogen - are you alright?"

"No harm done. I was up out of the chair and diving for the door as soon as the flask went over. Didn't see the mess it made, but I could hear it just fine from the living room. My experiment's completely ruined," he sighed mournfully. "The bench will be a bit wrecked, I'm afraid, and the gas will take a good few hours to clear - I didn't have a window open and I couldn't go back in after the spill to crack one."

Lestrade let out a sort of choked laugh. "You didn't have a gas mask on hand?"

Oh, now there was an idea. Sherlock sat up straight, arrested by the idea. He gazed unseeing out the window, eyes alight and mind abuzz with all the possibilities that investing in a gas mask would open up.

Ah, that would be fantastic. He could do all those experiments he had theorised about after the Baskerville case, all the dangerous mixes of chemicals that had much more than 'potential' to produce clouds of poisonous gases, the ones that he couldn't set up at 221b because they could poison John and Mrs Hudson and himself. But if he bought a gas mask, a proper one, and took it to the lab at Bart's... they had proper containment rooms there. He could run his experiments without fear of setting off a toxic reaction and having to evacuate, leaving the trial to be ravaged and the results ruined, without fear of smoking out the house or poisoning the others...

" -lock? Earth to Sherlock..."

He came back to himself with a minute shake of the head and focused on Lestrade. "Yes? What?"

"There we go," Lestrade drained his coffee and grinned. "Welcome back. I assume from your dreamy expression that you hadn't yet invested in a gas mask?"

"Not yet, no. I suspect one won't be far away, though; and maybe a fume cupboard for the kitchen, I'll run it by John when I see him."

"I'm regretting asking, now. More fool me for giving you ideas."

Sherlock lifted a mocking eyebrow, "Indeed."

"Speaking of John... you haven't heard from him yet?" There was an edge of... something... to Lestrade's voice. Surprise or amusement, maybe; Sherlock couldn't put a label on it.

"No, my mobile's flat. Why? Should I have heard from him?" Sherlock reached a hand into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his phone, "Which reminds me, can I borrow your computer? Need to charge it."

The older man looked as though he was going to say something and then changed his mind mind. "Yeah sure, cables are in the cabinet over there - " jerking his head to the side of the office, "second drawer down, I think. Might be a plastic box of them on the left."

Sherlock pulled the drawer open and rooted around amongst the mess of papers and containers and other miscellany, finally finding the right box and tugging it out. The cable was still on top from when he'd last used it a few months back, and his mobile was plugged in and charging in short order.

"Look, Sherlock..." Lestrade was leaning forward and biting his lip slightly, classic signs of either nervousness or uncertainty in most people. In Lestrade's case it would be the latter: as a naturally confident man and an experienced Detective Inspector, he was hardly ever nervous, and in any observable case thus far in Sherlock's association with the man, his tell for nervousness was much more subtle, consisting of no more than a slight firming of the mouth and tightening of the lines around his eyes. John could do well to learn something of subtlety. He had multiple tells - indrawn breath, stammering over his words, licking his lips, avoiding eye contact - all of which would be immediately and overtly obvious to any member of the general population, let alone those who had been trained in the art of observation, such as Lestrade and himself.

"How long has it been since you've heard from John?"

Sherlock frowned, "He didn't come home last night - "

Lestrade stifled a laugh, hastily turning it into a cough as Sherlock stared at him quizzically.

"He didn't come home last night," Sherlock repeated, "And I assume he was at work yesterday as yesterday was Tuesday and his work roster for this month includes Tuesdays. I was cleaning and organising my hard drive before then; might have been away for a day or so, I'm not entirely sure."

Accustomed to the mind palace/hard drive allegories and to his methods of prioritising and retaining data, Lestrade didn't even blink. "Mmm. I suspect you were out for a bit longer than that, actually," and there was a definite glint of humour in the man's eyes now.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, John's been gone since Sunday. He's in New Zealand, Sherlock."


	2. Sherlock and Greg in London

**National Novel Writing Month November 2012**

**I don't own BBC Sherlock. This story was written as my NaNoWriMo project: it has 7 chapters, 6 of which are in order; the 7th is actually chapter 16 of my outline. It's just over 50,000 words, and technically incomplete, as I do not plan on filling in the missing chapters from 7-15 and 16-?. That said, it's a good read and not half bad for having been written entirely in a month. I hope you enjoy it.**

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Sherlock and Greg in London**  
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Sherlock looked at Lestrade blankly, hard drive freezing for a second before it rebooted.

"New Zealand."

"Yeah, genius. New Zealand. You know, that little country a bit further south and east of Australia? Down Under and Over A Bit?" The question was clearly rhetorical.

"New Zealand, John's in New Zealand. Why is John in New Zealand?"

"He's visiting an old army mate, Pierce, I think his name was. Lives in Christchurch. John's been emailing him back and forth this last six months, and since the earthquakes, well..."

"Earthquakes?"

"Yes, Sherlock, earthquakes. The Canterbury Earthquakes?" There was a bite of impatience to Lestrade's voice, but seeing Sherlock's blank look he covered his face with an open hand and groaned. "Don't know why I even wasted the breath asking, you wouldn't have bothered storing it. September last year and February this year. Couple of major earthquakes hit the Canterbury region in the South Island of New Zealand, did millions of dollars worth of damage, killed over a hundred people. There are still ongoing aftershocks, apparently it's not uncommon to feel three or four in a day. Pierce lives in Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island, which also happens to be where the quakes have been centred. Most of the inner city has been levelled, either from the earthquakes directly or as a preventative measure in case of further quakes."

"Oh." Sherlock blinked. "And... this is where John's gone? Christchurch?"

"Seeing as he's visiting his friend and the friend is in Christchurch... yes."

"But didn't he go to New Zealand not that long ago? It was, what, five, six months back? He went with, oh, that doctor girlfriend. I didn't actually mind her too much. Sarah."

Lestrade levelled a Look at him. "He went in April last year. That's a good fourteen months ago."

"So why has he gone _now_?"

"He just needed a break, Sherlock. It's normal. People need breaks. They like to get a bit of fresh air, have some time to relax, catch up with some mates, do whatever they feel like doing... John needed a holiday, especially after Dartmoor; that case was pretty rough for all of us."

Sherlock felt a vague stirring of guilt. "That was back in March. It's June, now."

"You two have been frantic with cases since then. I think this is the first break of more than a few days you've had since you got back to London, and the stress does pile up, especially in our jobs. There are only so many atrocities you can handle seeing at a time, y'know. It makes getting away sometimes all that more important."

"Hm." Sherlock reached for his mobile and switched it on. "So he left on Sunday?" "He did, yeah," Lestrade nodded. "I went for a beer with him on Saturday night, he told me he'd told you at least half a dozen times, texted you several more times than that, and that he would write a note and leave it on the table for you. Barring that, I was to keep an eye on you and make sure that you actually found out one way or the other once you came back to the real world."

"Ah," Sherlock remembered his chart in the half-destroyed kitchen. Now that he thought about it, there may have been something scribbled on the other side of it. Oops. "How long is he away for?"

"Two weeks. He gets back on the nineteenth."

Sherlock stared at Lestrade. _Two weeks?_ Fourteen days - well, eleven days, now. Eleven days of no John because John is away and no experiments because the kitchen is unusable and no audience for his genius apart from whenever he could get a case, and that audience would be purely professional from Lestrade (_"Just give us the facts, Sherlock, we've got a killer to catch."_) and purely cynical from Anderson and Donovan (_"Freak's here again. Look at him, he's like a lost puppy without his handler."_), and of course there would be the ever increasing itching crawling scratching craving of the drugs...

He swallowed. "Two weeks."

Lestrade must have seen the hint of panic in his eyes; he grimaced sympathetically. "Yeah, well, I know I'm not John, not by a long shot, but surely it's not that bad, is it? You don't need the man present in order to function, after all."

Sherlock didn't reply. Not because he was unsure of the answer, of course not (not that it was really a question in the first place), but because there were other things that required his attention, like... ah! his mobile, of course. He must have left it on silent the last time he used it, and the screen was showing a flashing envelope along with _17 messages received. _He scratched absent-mindedly at his arm and tapped them open.

Message 1 of 17

4th June 2011

Thought I'd start early in letting you know via text. I'm leaving for New Zealand tomorrow, Sherlock. - JW

Message received 07:30

Message 2 of 17

4th June 2011

We're out of milk. Also I'm going to New Zealand tomorrow. For two weeks. - JW

Message received 07:35

Message 3 of 17

4th June 2011

Already told you in person six times, but I don't know if you were listening. Or maybe you deleted it. You never know, with you. I'm going to New Zealand tomorrow. - JW

Message received 13:15

Message 4 of 17

4th June 2011

Going to New Zealand. Leaving tomorrow (Sunday 5th June 2011). Back on the 19th. - JW

Message received 19:32

Message 5 of 17

4th June 2011

Greg's going to keep an eye on you while I'm in New Zealand. He'll find some cases to keep you occupied, maybe a nice double homicide or something. And I realise that you won't have realised it, but that sentence was more than a bit not good, especially since I'm a doctor. Hippocratic oath and all that. Don't know when two deaths became preferable to you suffering a bit of boredom, but it is. Possibly because I know what a terror you are when you're bored. You'd likely try and recreate the Great Fire of London in the name of research. - JW

Message received 21:25

Sherlock grinned. He wouldn't go _that_ far. Probably.

Message 6 of 17

5th June 2011

Finished packing. For New Zealand. - JW

Message received 05:30

Message 7 of 17

5th June 2011

The cab's here. I'm going now, Sherlock. To New Zealand. For two weeks. - JW

Message received 05:45

Message 8 of 17

5th June 2011

Cab ride's not the same by myself. Don't miss me too much while I'm away. - JW

Message received 06:14

Message 9 of 17

5th June 2011

Waiting at Heathrow now. For my flight. To New Zealand. - JW

Message received 06:48

Message 10 of 17

5th June 2011

This place is dead boring. Not literally. A body would liven it up nicely, actually. Remember to eat while I'm gone. If you need milk, go and buy it yourself, don't nick Mrs H's. There's a couple of frozen meals in the freezer next to those severed toes. Teabags are in the cupboard above the microwave. - JW

Message received 07:05

Message 11 of 17

5th June 2011

Don't use the white stuff in the sugar bowl, you put lead acetate in there last week. It is actually salt in the salt bowl, though. Sugar is in the blue mug behind the bunsen burner. Don't blow the kitchen up before I get back, please. - JW

Message received 07:30

Sherlock winced and kept reading.

Message 12 of 17

5th June 2011

Man sitting opposite me looks a bit like Greg. Greying hair, blue eyes, about 6'2, slender with swimmer's shoulders. Probably in his mid-fifties. He has two daughters and a dog and is divorced or widowed. Tan line on his ring finger and photo in his wallet. Sturdy leather boots. If you were here you'd tell me that I got everything wrong and why. Hope the flat doesn't feel too empty for you while I'm away in New Zealand. - JW

Message received 07:53

Message 13 of 17

5th June 2011

Flight doesn't leave until ten. Have to check in three hours ahead of any international flight, you know. Waste of time. Spent the last hour reading one of those cheap crime novels you hate. Knew who had done it by the third chapter. Binned it by the sixth. Characters were cliche, the plot was ridiculous, details were vague when they should have been in depth and in depth when they should have been vague - I mean really, we don't need to know that the shade of lipstick she left on his coffee cup was _L'Oreal Paris: Infallible: Le Rouge: Molten Caramel_, do we now? What on earth sort of colour is _molten caramel? _And who leaves lipstick on coffee cups anyway? It's only slightly better than leaving it on a shirt collar. I'm sure woman have all sorts of glosses and sealers and things to make sure their lippy doesn't even smudge, let alone transfer to other things. - JW

Message received 09:14

Message 14 of 17

5th June 2011

I'll flick you an email once I've landed, let you know I'm there safe and sound - not that you'd worry, of course not, don't be silly, John. I have an inner You now, did you know that? - JW

Message received 09:18

Message 15 of 17

5th June 2011

I hope you don't plan on spending the whole two weeks in your mind palace. You'd get bedsores and I would not be happy. Exercise, Sherlock, at least half an hour a day. And try and eat a bit. I would mention sleep but that would just be pointless. - JW

Message received 09:24

Message 16 of 17

5th June 2011

If you don't get these texts, I hope you at least glance at the note I left on the kitchen table before you burn it or use it to mop up a spill or flip it over to write on the back because you can't be bothered getting up to find some clean paper. For the record, we have a whole stack of fresh paper sitting under the coffee table. It's been there for three weeks now, you might like to put it away somewhere. - JW

Message received 09:30

Message 17 of 17

5th June 2011

They're calling my flight now. Bye, Sherlock. I'll see you in two weeks. Don't do anything too stupid while I'm gone, will you? Cheers. - JW

Messaged received 09:43

Sherlock stared at his phone for a second, thumb still making absent scrolling motions on the screen.

His immediate reaction was one of mixed relief and warmth. Relief because he knew where John was, had read John's leaving words, knew that he hadn't been waylaid (hijacked, kidnapped, abducted) on his way to the airport or elsewhere; and warmth because it was so very typical of John to send seventeen text messages in two days to make sure that Sherlock knew where he had gone (_not that he'd worry, of course not, don't be silly, John_), typical that John would use any available method to make sure that Sherlock got the message.

Texts and friends and notes, oh my - and Sherlock chuckled aloud at the fate of that last one, scribbled all over, caught in an explosion, and then drowned in clouds of hydrogen.

A glance at Lestrade showed that he'd gone back to his paperwork and was largely ignoring him, although a smile betrayed his amusement at Sherlock's reaction to the texts.

It was so typical of John to leave a note even when he knew that there was almost no chance that Sherlock would even see it, let alone read it or remember it. Typical that he would then write a snarky text with Sherlock's likely reaction to finding a strange piece of paper on the kitchen table.

There was that twitch of a grin playing about his mouth again. Sherlock had never had a flatmate - never had a friend - who knew him so well as to be able to predict his actions and reactions with any degree of accuracy; but that was exactly what John had done. Mycroft didn't count, they'd grown up together, they shared the same genes, the same experiences, of course Mycroft would know his reactions. Lestrade had known him longer but in a much more professional capacity, and obviously their interactions were limited by time and mental distance. They rarely talked as friends, as Sherlock and Lestrade. Instead it was Detective Inspector and Consulting Detective, both needing information from the other and then going their separate ways once they had what they needed.

But sometimes it wasn't _Detective Inspector_ but simply _Lestrade_, or even, more recently, _Greg. _The first name was important information, very significant in social interactions (_"Ah, Mr. Holmes." "Sherlock, please."_), and a rare oversight on his part. To be fair, he hadn't seen the need for friends until John came waltzing along to upset his lovely isolated bubble; and then of course the friendship between John and Greg had necessitated that Sherlock close some of the distance between himself and the D.I. as well.

Another glance at Lestrade showed the man was still - well, not exactly engrossed in, but definitely busy with his paperwork. Sherlock slouched down in the visitor's chair, debated for a moment, and then tapped his email open. He just had time to see _Inbox (2) _when Donovan knocked at the door and opened it.

"One for us, sir. Victim found dead in a hotel in Greenwich."

Lestrade was already on his feet and reaching for his suit jacket, "Address?"

"Novotel London Greenwich. Greenwich High Road, SE10. Just off the A206." She cast a disparaging look at Sherlock and added, "Sounded pretty straightforward, I don't think you'd be interested in this one, Freak."

"Donovan, you can ride with the boys. Sherlock, you're with me," and Lestrade was out the door.

Sherlock unplugged his mobile, nodded mock-politely at Sally, and followed the Detective Inspector.

It wasn't until he was in the passenger seat of Lestrade's BMW that he said, with the merest trace of hesitation, "You didn't give me a choice."

The older man lifted an inquiring brow as he pulled out into traffic and switched the dash lights and police siren on.

"About whether I wanted to come with you or not," Sherlock clarified. "You didn't actually ask me."

"Wasn't going to miss the chance to put Donovan in her place, was I?" Lestrade replied. "I get well and truly sick of her badmouthing you and John. Besides which you wouldn't be sitting there if you didn't want to be here, you would have disappeared when we were halfway down the stairs, or else you'd still be in my office, on my computer and hacking into the Met database by now. I know you, Sherlock. Not as well as John does, maybe, but I do know that you sure as heck weren't hanging out in my office for a lark. You need a distraction while he's away, and here one is. I'd have been mad to stop you coming."

Sherlock made a hum of acknowledgement, mind busy absorbing this new information; and yet it wasn't new information, not really. He'd known Lestrade was observant, not to his own level of course, but certainly moreso than most people; and the man had known him long enough by now (six years? six and a half? something like that, anyway) that he'd no doubt have picked up on his habits of temperament and behaviour.

He scratched his arm again, noted the location (left forearm near the elbow), and grimaced. Not only was it annoying, but Lestrade knew he'd done drugs in the past, and it wouldn't take much for him to notice the increased attention to a prime injection spot.

He'd never been an addict, strictly speaking. It had started out purely as research, using himself as a test subject for the drugs that were most commonly cited as being involved in homicidal crime: but then he'd gone from noting his reactions (euphoria, increased heartbeat, pupils dilated, decrease of fine motor skills) to suffering the aftermath (mood swings, depression, a terrible blankness of the mind, destructive urges, itching beneath the skin, cravings for more of the drug) and had told himself _no. _That was all it took. He was the master of his body, the master of his mind; if he couldn't control himself, who could? And so he had stopped himself before there was any more damage done.

But the urges always resurfaced, be it after a week or a month or six months, and he'd turned again to the drugs ("_Relapsed, Sherlock, call it what it is. You couldn't control it and you relapsed._") two or three times in the years since then. Always in the name of research, of course: breaking down the chemical composition of them, noting any differences in the batches, and then of course what was the use of his research if he didn't know how those differences affected the behaviour of the person taking them?

Nicotine was an satisfactory substitute, transferring the urge for illegal substances into something more acceptable both for himself and for those around him; but of course it was impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days, so he generally used nicotine patches instead of cigarettes. Smoking was one of the few habits he shared with Mycroft, along with observation, deduction, and a general dislike of the other sibling. Neither of them used actual cigarettes except in highly stressful situations, and the offer of one was not so much a sincere gesture as a test for emotional or mental weakness.

And speaking of nicotine... "Have you got any patches in here?"

Lestrade barely blinked at the sudden question after a prolonged absence of speech, "Thought you were quitting for good."

"I was, but then John left for two weeks."

"And this changes the situation... how?"

Sherlock snorted impatiently, "Don't be obtuse, Inspector. Do you have some or not?"

"Mmm," the older man hummed thoughtfully, glancing at Sherlock for a moment before turning back to watch the road, "Alright then, but if John asks, I didn't tell you. If I do have any left they'll be in the glove box."

Sherlock opened the compartment and rummaged around, finding several notebooks, half a dozen pens, a couple of half-empty packs of gum, one lens out of a pair of aviator sunglasses, a work tie, two boxes of matches, a record of mileage for the car, and a travel-sized can of deodorant before he finally located the carton of patches. He pulled three out of the box and slammed the glove compartment shut before anything could fall out.

"Hope you're not planning on using all of those at once," murmured Lestrade, his tone falling somewhere between caution and amusement.

Sherlock shook his head, slapping one patch on his inner forearm and shoving the other two in his jacket pocket. "I doubt this will even be a one patch problem."

Lestrade raised a brow without looking away from his driving, and there was definite amusement in his voice when he said, "Well, we're almost there. You'll have your chance soon enough."

Five minutes later they were pulling into the car park at the hotel. Sherlock was out of the car and striding for the main reception before Lestrade had even engaged the handbrake.

The concierge at the counter was in her early thirties with green eyes and blonde hair done up in a professional twist.

"There was a body found at this hotel this morning, where is it?"

"Uh..." she looked uncertainly at him, eyes travelling from his feet up to his torso and over his shoulder. A firm hand clapped him on that same shoulder, then slid down just enough so that it was out of sight of the girl. Lestrade had caught up with him, then.

Sherlock could just hear the restrained eye roll in his voice as he said apologetically, "Sorry about my colleague here, he's fairly new to the whole public relations thing."

There was some minute relaxation from the receptionist. "Not to worry, Mister..."

"Detective Inspector Lestrade," accompanied by a flip of the badge, "with the Metropolitan Police."

"Oh, you're here about the dead woman," the relief was evident in her voice.

Sherlock was opening his mouth to dissuade the concierge of her delusions of intelligence when the hand tightened warningly on his shoulder.

"We are, yes. Can you tell us anything about her?"

"Oh, it was a terrible tragedy, it was, they'd only been here two days," she said eagerly, "They were booked for a whole week, on holiday up from Southampton. Mr Leighton had a business meeting today though, he was flying up to Edinburgh early this morning for it. He'll be back tonight if you need to talk to him. The poor man'll be devastated, it was their tenth wedding anniversary."

"Thank you, Ms Roberts, you've been very helpful." No hesitation, no clumsy pause while Lestrade looked at her name badge; either the name had already been given to him (unlikely) or he'd scanned her unobtrusively for such an item on the way into the room (much more likely). "Now if you'd be kind enough to point us in the right direction...?"

A flash of the LestradeTM Calm Professional Smile Mk II, and they were on their way to the third floor. The woman unlocked the door for them before disappearing back downstairs. They'd beaten the squad car here, then.

The body was crumpled on the floor beside the desk, dried blood from four stab wounds staining the front of her (expensive, conspicuously so) blouse. Long brown hair, brown eyes open wide in what would have been panic or anger, body curvy to the point of plumpness.

Sherlock stooped to check the positioning of the wounds (upper stomach, heart, glanced off the fourth rib, axillary tail of the left breast) before prowling around the room, taking stock of the desk (laptop open and asleep, emails up on screen when he touched the trackpad, pen and notepad untouched, half a mug of tea to the left hand side), the bed (it had obviously used for the usual intimate activities of a husband and wife on holiday, but was neatly made again, though not to professional standards so the maid didn't make it, probably the husband, or wife before she was killed) and room in general (tidy but not excessively so, they'd been here enough to eat and sleep, maybe a few hours of leisure time but that was about it, likely out and about doing the London Eye and the National Gallery and other such tourist attractions).

Finally he stood back, half turning to Lestrade, "John, how long would you say - "

He stopped, stared blankly, then ran a hand through his curls and exhaled roughly. "You didn't hear that."

"Hear what?" Lestrade inquired blandly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Sherlock levelled a half hearted glare at him before turning back to the body, "Quite. Now, this is so simple a child could have named the murderer - "

There was a clatter at the door and Donovan, Anderson, and the rest of the team walked in.

"Oh good, you're just in time. As I was saying," he paced back and forth across the room, gesturing as he explained, "it was obviously the husband. Even a child could have told you that, though not the proper motivation behind it. It's such an obvious answer, and everyone knows it is, everybody's minds automatically jump to either the spouse or the lover, so much so that I don't know why they even bother, I really don't - "

There was a warning cough from Lestrade.

"Anyway. Tenth wedding anniversary, they'd been here two days, obviously been involved in the expected sightseeing and bedroom activities - Sally, if you're going to vomit do it in the bathroom. It's evening or night time yesterday, he comes back from the bar early and sees her sitting at the desk checking her emails. She's left handed, that's her mug of tea. Within the first ten years of a marriage is statistically when most affairs and/or divorces occur, that fits the scenario. He's had a bit much to drink, enough to make him rather emotional and certainly more impulsive than usual. He comes over and puts his arm around her, you can smell the whisky on the back of her blouse. She puts the screen to sleep but not quick enough, he sees she was sending a rather amorous email to a young male workmate, stupid girl."

There was a choked noise from Donovan, which Sherlock ignored.

"He confronts her, she admits she's been having an affair for at least the last six months - that's how far back the risqué emails go, anyway - and then they're both on their feet shouting. He snatches up the letter opener from the desk - he's right handed, the wounds are on her left, they correspond with the angle and distance he'd be striking from - and stabs her four times in quick succession, impulsive, inaccurate, but one of the strikes does the job, it stabs her heart and she dies."

There was silence for a minute as they digested this, and then Lestrade asked, "So he just runs off without even attempting to cover it up?"

"No no no, even he isn't quite that stupid," Sherlock stepped over to the vanity unit, looked it over, and nodded. "He probably had a necklace or a bracelet all ready to give her on the night of their anniversary, something conspicuously expensive with a token band of tin because of the ten years. He'll have taken that with him to Edinburgh - "

"Edinburgh?" Anderson interrupted, "How on earth could you know that he's in Edinburgh?"

"Don't speak, Anderson, it only showcases your ignorance," Sherlock said impatiently, "the concierge downstairs told us that he was in Edinburgh for a business meeting today. Anyway, he'll likely pawn that off while he's away, man like that wouldn't want to lose the money if he can help it. If he's planning to come back to London at all, he'll probably time it for early tomorrow morning - he'll say his flight was delayed or the meeting ran longer than expected or some such excuse - and he will, of course, be devastated by his wife's vicious murder. He'll then discover that the jewellery is missing and will attempt to use that to justify an accusation of robbery gone wrong. The thief broke in, looted for valuables, his wife came back and caught him in the act, he panicked, stabbed her, and ran for it. None of which explains obvious details like multiple stab wounds, the disappearance of the murder weapon, the fact that the victim is nowhere near the door, the lack of damage to the door, the fact that no-one except the husband knew about the expensive jewellery, the fact that the wife left a half-written email to her paramour up on the laptop screen, and so on. But that's the criminal classes these days for you - they just don't _think._"

There was the usual stunned silence that followed one of Sherlock's monologues. Finally, Donovan asked slowly, "So... where _is_ the murder weapon?"

"The letter opener? He stuck it in his pocket and walked out with it, probably asked the cab to stop on the way to Heathrow so that he could dump it..." and _oh wasn't that an idea_ and he would too, wouldn't he, rich man like that, conspicuous philanthropy, even if there was only a taxi driver to see him give a poor homeless man his jacket... "I've nothing terribly exciting on this afternoon, I'll find the weapon and get it to Lestrade by dinner time."

And with that he strolled out of the room, leaving them to the tedious business of clean-up and paperwork.

Message 1 of 1

8th June 2011

You'll want to keep an eye out at Heathrow for Leighton, he may surprise us and come back earlier than usual. Swab the room for DNA, the only prints apart from the Leightons' will be from Housekeeping. He'll likely have wiped the blood off the letter opener and his prints in the process, but it doesn't matter, the jacket will have his prints and his DNA all over it in any case. - SH

Message sent 13:37

Now, where would the murderer go, where would he go, he was heading for Heathrow wasn't he, alright, so he would have caught a cab from the hotel... Sherlock pulled up a mental map of London highways and cab routes... Greenwich to Hillingdon, he would have joined the M4 at Chiswick, no chance of dumping the weapon after that point so he would have had to do it before then, and probably before he hit Vauxhall, even, there was an increased police presence in Inner London, greater chance of being pulled over by a checkpoint, he wouldn't risk that. The most likely route for a cab to take between Greenwich and Vauxhall then, what was that, that would be the A2, and if Sherlock's deductions were right (and he was always right) Leighton would have stopped at a park somewhere along the way for his magnanimous show of philanthropy. So the park would have to be well lit on the street-side, maybe a bench or something for one of the homeless to sit on in case of any generous passers-by, easy to access from the road, somewhere that the homeless visited even in the early hours of the morning... ah! Lucas Gardens. Peckham. That fit the profile. Now, who from the Homeless Network was in Peckham... Young Mort often covered that area south of The Thames, from New Cross to Camberwell, and as luck would have it there was a cemetery nearby.

(Young homeless boy hanging around a cemetery, he must have lost his parents, oh the poor dear, let's give him some change. Such a violent world we live in today, how tragic, and mooooooving along...)

Sherlock thrust his arm out for a cab just as his mobile chimed. Once again it took a minute or two longer than usual for a cab to pull over, drat the understated suit jacket, but he was soon on his way to Brockley Cemetery.

Message 1 of 1

8th June 2011

Thanks for that, Sherlock, I really need you telling me how to do my job. It's not like I've been doing it for the last twenty years myself or anything. - GL

Message received 13:49

Sherlock grinned.

Message 1 of 1

8th June 2011

I know you're more than competent, Lestrade, but your team certainly isn't, especially with Anderson on Forensics. Wouldn't want anything important to be missed, and I wouldn't put it past the man to make an amateur mistake like forgetting to dust for fingerprints. - SH

Message sent 13:52

Anticipating that Lestrade would be busy conducting staff interviews and gathering evidence from the hotel room, Sherlock sank into his thoughts for the rest of the ride to Brockley. He was just paying the cabbie outside the Cemetery when his mobile beeped twice in quick succession.

Message 1 of 2

8th June 2011

Just get me the jacket with the murder weapon, Sherlock. - GL

Message received 14:15

Message 2 of 2

8th June 2011

One day you'll have to tell me about the origins of this feud with Anderson. - GL

Message received 14:15

Sherlock smirked. _One day, perhaps._

He found Mort after half an hour at a curve in one of the lesser frequented pathways. The messy-headed boy obviously had his eye on a potential benefactor, but as soon as he saw Sherlock he left his spot and wandered over.

"Haven't seen you here before, sir."

"That's because I haven't been here before," Sherlock handed him a twenty, "I need your help."

One could almost see the boy's ears prick up, "Well, then, I'm your man."

"A businessman in a cab going past Lucas Gardens in Peckham this morning gave his jacket to a homeless person. It would have been a plain black suit jacket, expensive branding, probably a custom label. I don't know if the person was part of the network or not, but I need you to find them and bring me that jacket. Everything should be still in the pockets, understand?"

"Black jacket, nothing missing. Got it."

"Good. That was for you," Sherlock nodded toward the twenty in Mort's hand, "and this is for whoever has the jacket," he handed him another ten. "I'll be waiting outside the South London Gallery in three hours."

"Thanks, mister!" and the boy was off.

No doubt Mort would catch a bus, it was only three miles to Peckham but for someone of his age and height it would take a good hour and half to walk, and he wouldn't be able to afford the time, not when he had to find the jacket as well.

Sherlock would walk, three miles was nothing and he could cover it in under an hour.

Fifty minutes later he was in a coffee shop in Peckham, and as his mind had very annoyingly decided to remind him of John's text (_Message fifteen of seventeen: I hope you don't plan on spending the whole two weeks in your mind palace. You'd get bedsores and I would not be happy. Exercise, Sherlock, at least half an hour a day. And try and eat a bit. I would mention sleep but that would just be pointless._), he had actually ordered a sandwich to go with his coffee. He took his time, so much so that the coffee was stone cold by the time he reached the bottom of the cup, and even then he still had over an hour to wait.

Rather than sit around pointlessly for eighty minutes, Sherlock used the time to explore the immediate area, adding shops, streets, and alleys to his ever-increasing mind map of London. By the time of the meeting with Mort he'd added most of the landmarks within a one mile radius of the coffee shop to his map, and was well satisfied with the use of his time. He ducked through an alley back to the main street and headed for the Gallery.

Mort was waiting for him, holding the jacket.

"Good decision," Sherlock murmured, retrieving it.

The boy looked puzzled, "How's that?"

"Not wearing the jacket. You would've been labelled a thief in two minutes flat."

He favoured Sherlock with a disgusted look, "I'm not daft, mister."

"Mmm. Obviously not. No trouble finding it, then?"

"Smooth as glass of amber rum. Susie had it, she was planning to give it to Jack when next she saw 'im, but she took the tenner in exchange for it no worries."

"Good." He patted the jacket down gently to make sure the letter opener was still in the jacket. It was. Excellent. John's voice in the back of his mind prompted him, and he added, "You'll be alright getting back?"

Mort shot him a startled look, but nodded. "Sure will, sir. Thanks for the job."

"Not a problem."

Sherlock watched as the boy disappeared off down the street before glancing at his watch. 17:45. Traffic would be diabolical. He'd be quicker just walking to the Met, he could make it in forty minutes if he used the shortcuts. Take the backstreets up to Vauxhall, cross the Thames at Lambeth Bridge, then cut across Westminster to Victoria Street and Broadway. Easy.

It was twenty past six when he strode into Lestrade's office.

"Jacket."

Sherlock set the jacket on the desk before dropping into the visitor's chair.

Lestrade managed to incorporate an eye roll into his glance up from paperwork. "I'm sensing a pattern here."

"Twice in one day isn't exactly a pattern."

"It's near enough for me." He nodded at the jacket, "You could have just dropped it in to the lab on your way up."

Sherlock shrugged. "I said I'd bring it to you. The longer I can delay Anderson getting his hands on it, the better."

"He's gone home already. I don't see how that matters anyway, it's not like you can do the analysis yourself. There's a limit to how much we can let a civilian in on, you know."

"I know, I just don't like Anderson," Sherlock smirked.

Lestrade stood and stretched, "Come on then, I'm done for the day. We can leave the jacket at Evidence on our way out. Do you want a lift back to Baker Street?"

Five minutes later Sherlock was once again in Lestrade's BMW, though this time it was heading in almost the opposite direction. The drive to the flat was short and largely silent, Lestrade being tired after a long day and Sherlock being Sherlock, busy with his thoughts and never the type for casual conversation.

The prospect of returning to a silent, empty flat was almost depressing. Lestrade must have picked up on his less than stellar mood (and what sort of a metaphor was that, anyway? 'Stellar'. He certainly wasn't in a mood consisting of gaseous spheres composed primarily of hydrogen and helium with an equilibrium between the compressional force of gravity and the outward pressure of radiation resulting from internal thermonuclear fusion reactions); as they drew up outside 221b the older man turned to Sherlock.

"You'll be alright?"

Sherlock slanted a withering glance his way, "I'm not a child, Lestrade; I am more than capable of looking after myself for the remaining ten days sixteen hours and thirty minutes, approximately, that John is away."

Lestrade muttered something that might have been "Debatable," under his breath before returning to a normal volume. "Mrs Hudson's there, anyway, if you need some human contact. You've got my number, and... well, if you want some company or anything - "

"I know. Thank you."

"Come by the Yard tomorrow and I'll find you something to do - there's always cold cases if nothing else."

Sherlock nodded, "I'll do that."

"Right. Good. See you tomorrow, then."

Sherlock shut the car door and stepped back, turning to let himself into the flat. He glanced at his watch as he walked into the entranceway - 19:05. Mrs Hudson would be watching her evening telly. He wouldn't intrude.

The living room upstairs was cold and dark, lifeless, the antithesis of welcoming. He left the lights off and sank onto the couch until he was lying full length, staring up at the shadowy ceiling.

Eleven days.

Eleven. Days.

He would go mad.

It was fine before John because he hadn't known what it was like to have a flatmate, a friend, like John, and it was fine when John had gone away last time because Sherlock hadn't noticed, but this time he had noticed and there was still eleven days to go (ten days sixteen hours and seventeen minutes, really, but who was counting?) and it was horrible terrible hellish boring boring boring itching scratching craving, and, quite simply, he would go mad.

Oh!

He pulled out his phone and opened his emails.

_Inbox (2)_.

Excellent. He tapped the first one open.

_johnhwatson .uk_

to

_sherlockholmes .uk_

Received 23:30

5th June 2011

_Sherlock,_

_How's London holding up without me? Hope you haven't burnt the house down. Emergency number is 999 and ask for the Fire Brigade if you need them. Go and make yourself a cup of tea before you read the rest of this, that's an order. And you'd better have eaten today._

Sherlock rolled his eyes - it wasn't like John would know if he had eaten or drank anything - but complied. They were out of milk. He drank it anyway.

_Excellent, not as good a cup as I make, I'm sure, but not a bad effort. Thank you. _

_You still haven't bought milk, have you?_

_I'm at Singapore, we have a six hour stopover before the flight to New Zealand. I slept most of the way between Heathrow and here, bless the army for teaching me to sleep anywhere and anywhen no matter the conditions. I had a window seat, there was a chubby Welsh businessman beside me and a young single mother with a baby beside him. She'd been visiting some cousins in Birmingham, she said, and was on her way to Perth to see her sister. I really don't know where a young single mother would have got the money from to go travelling across the world, but she could have won the lottery or been saving for years or anything, really, I suppose._

_I know, I know, it's a mistake to theorise without adequate data. It didn't matter anyway, I was just making polite conversation._

_Has Greg found you any cases yet? It's only been one day, I know, but I also know just how bored you get when you don't have your flatmate/blogger/best friend to give you an adequate audience for your genius. Don't give me that innocent 'who me?' look, you know it's true._

_I'm sure he'll have some cold cases for you, or he can refer you to one of the other departments if they have something exciting going on. Barring that you can always go and annoy Mycroft._

_Oh, forgot to tell you before I left - you're paying for any damages to the flat while I'm away. And I'd recommend you get everything fixed before I get back, I'll be happier if I don't know about them. Ignorance is bliss in this particular case, okay? Ta._

_I'll flick you another email when I touch down in New Zealand. Might even have a reply from you by then, if you're finished filing everything away yet._

_Cheers,_

_John._

Sherlock looked at kitchen doors and winced. Lestrade had been right, John wouldn't be happy. He stood up from the couch, crossed the room, and slipped into the kitchen cautiously. Any clouds of gas had dissipated, though there was still a decent tang of chemical smell to the air. There was a small crater in the bench, surrounded by a large patch of scorch marks and acid bubbling that flowed down onto the vinyl floor - it was well and truly ruined. He slipped to the other end of the room and opened the window wide before returning to the living room, opening both windows there, and lying back on the sofa.

_johnhwatson .uk_

to

_sherlockholmes .uk_

Received 19:05

6th June 2011

_Sherlock,_

_No reply from you yet, are you still organising data? Taking your time, aren't you? I didn't think there was that much new information, but I guess you have to sort through all the extraneous stuff too. That spaniel yelped like anything, it was rather painful._

_Sorry this email is a few hours late, I waited until I'd arrived in Christchurch and unpacked at Scott's place._

_Flight was alright, had a bubbly American beside me for this leg, one of those perky blonde cheerleader types, couldn't have been above five foot four. She was on a six-week cultural exchange, and from what I saw, it will be quite the change for her. New Zealand seems a lot like England so far, minus the rain - arrival and departure times are relatively accurate, everyone is very laid back and casual about everything, and they don't seem to be much inclined toward everlasting social chitchat. This American girl was almost the opposite - wouldn't shut up, and she'd be the type to be an hour late everywhere she goes. You'd hate her. Left her at the airport in Auckland, luckily. Don't think I could've handled another hour long flight with her._

_Sky was overcast when we landed at Christchurch, so I couldn't see the fabled Red Zone - that's what they've labelled the central city district where the earthquakes did the most damage. (If you don't know about the Christchurch earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011, go and ask Greg. Or google it. It's important stuff, Sherlock, lock it in to at least your mid-term memory.) _

_Apparently they've demolished over a hundred buildings so far; there's nearly a thousand due for demolition eventually, and that's only in the very innermost area of damage. There's something like ten thousand houses that are damaged to the point of being completely unliveable or else they're on land that's too damaged to keep living there, it sounds like something out of a war zone to be honest. I haven't been into the Inner City yet, haven't even seen much of the rest of Christchurch, really, I've only been here two hours; but we'll probably do that sometime later on this week._

_Scott - that's Private Pierce - and his two flatmates are nice guys. We don't call him Scott, though, he's still Pierce over here, funnily enough. That's because one of his flatmates is also a Scott, so they go by their last names - Pierce and McLaughlin. They have an interesting mix of nationalities all over New Zealand, and Christchurch is no different: Pierce has English roots from about five generations back, one set of McLaughlin's great-grandparents were Scottish and he also has a French grandmother, and the third guy, Rangi Walker, is half-Maori._

_I think that's all the news for now: as I said, I haven't been here long enough for anything really significant to happen. I'll be sure to drop you a line if there are any mysterious double suicides in the local news or anything. _

_Don't get into too much trouble while I'm away, will you?_

_John._

And that was it.

As with the texts, his thumb kept scrolling down the screen as if unconsciously (or maybe not so unconsciously, he admitted to himself) hoping for more information, more communication, more words and sentences and paragraphs that he could read in John's voice as if John was still in the room with him: but there was nothing.

Sherlock blanked the screen with a sigh.

He would go mad, pure and simple, mad mad mad mad mad, and when John returned he would find that his irritating but occasionally endearing genius of a flatmate had turned into an irritating and completely senile genius of a flatmate, and would want nothing to do with him, and it would all be John's fault anyway for going away in the first place, so there.

He stuck his tongue out at the ceiling in a fit of childishness, and then retracted it after a moment as a thought occurred to him.

Unless...

Oh, now that was an idea.

And why not, really, it wasn't like he had anything else to do for ten days fourteen hours and forty five minutes.

He'd just have to check...

Bouncing up from the couch, Sherlock stepped over the coffee table and strode for his bedroom, not bothering to turn any lights on - it was still light enough to see easily, and if his plan worked out he wouldn't be here for long anyway. Into his room, open the wardrobe, steadfastly ignore the false floorboard ("_I don't need those, I'm going to Dartmoor!_"). Lift the shoebox off the second to top shelf on the right and set it on the bed.

Open the lid of the box and rummage around inside, hoping, hoping, hoping, and yes! Oh, wasn't that just brilliant!

He held it up for a moment before tucking it into his pocket, and then made for the door. There were things to be done.


	3. Greg in London

**National Novel Writing Month November 2012**

**I don't own BBC Sherlock. This story was written as my NaNoWriMo project: it has 7 chapters, 6 of which are in order; the 7th is actually chapter 16 of my outline. It's just over 50,000 words, and technically incomplete, as I do not plan on filling in the missing chapters from 7-15 and 16-?. That said, it's a good read and not half bad for having been written entirely in a month. I hope you enjoy it.**

**I do have a few deleted scenes that I could be persuade to upload. Reviews = persuasion, obviously. :)**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Greg in London**  
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It was half past seven the following morning when Greg Lestrade walked into his office at the Met. He'd thought about skipping his usual morning coffee - John had advised him to cut back when he'd asked him on Saturday night what his daily intake was and Greg had lost count after the six cup mark - but in the end he needed the energy, and besides, he could always pass on the one at lunch. Caffeine and nicotine were his two standard methods for getting through the day, and he'd been successfully cutting back on the patches lately - surely the Doc would cut him a bit of slack.

They all had their coping methods. He had the caffeine and nicotine; Sherlock had the violin, the nicotine, and in the past he'd had the drugs, too; John had tea and his latest girlfriend and the nightmares, though these last were thankfully less frequent since he'd moved in to Baker Street.

So Greg had been cutting back on the patches, but not the coffee, because coffee wasn't a big deal, was it, nothing to make a fuss over, and he really did need the energy. He hadn't made it to Detective Inspector by working the bare nine to five Monday to Friday and call in sick when it snowed, and the added stress of the situation with Jenny certainly didn't help.

Situation? Ha! What situation? He'd finally given up on hopes of repairing his marriage on the holiday before Dartmoor: right mess of a holiday that had been, too. She'd finally come clean about the P.E. teacher, he'd had a bit of a cathartic shouting match with her, and they'd gone their separate ways.

In the months since then the caffeine had been steadily increasing, until John's quiet word in his ear over beers on Saturday night. Greg wasn't one to ignore the advice of both a Doctor and a good friend. He'd skip the coffee at lunchtime.

In the meantime, he was very much enjoying his latte from the coffee shop downstairs.

A quick check of his work emails showed there had been no new arrivals since last night, and he was getting on with the ever-present paperwork when Donovan stuck her head around the door.

"Sir? They've arrested Leighton."

Head full of the paperwork from last week's arson, it took Greg a moment to click as to who she was referring to. "Leighton... that was the knifing from yesterday, that hotel in Greenwich, yeah?"

"Yes, sir. They - that is to say, Daniels, Li, and Bowman - have arrested Leighton, who was the suspected perpetrator of yesterday's stabbing. He came back to London on an early flight, they nabbed him at Heathrow. They informed him of his wife's murder, nice and gently, like he was any other grieving husband, and he tried to tell them it must have been a burglary gone wrong, just like the Freak said he would."

"Holmes."

"Sorry, sir?"

"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, at least call him Holmes. Not _Freak_, not within my hearing. Understood?"

Donovan looked as she might argue for a second, but nodded grudgingly, "Yes, sir. We're holding Leighton on suspicion of murder for now, but the lab results on the letter opener shouldn't be far away. Anderson's running blood tests and fingerprinting now."

"Excellent. Tell him to let me know when Forensics gets any results."

"Will do."

Time flowed. Paperwork was slowly filled out, reports were typed, and an hour later it was Anderson popping his head around the door.

"Sir?"

"Come in, Anderson. What've you got for me?"

He perched on the edge of the visitor's chair, a position so very different from Sherlock's comfortable sprawl yesterday. "Well, the jacket is definitely Leighton's - his DNA is all over it, it has custom labels, and to top it off he saw me with it and demanded it back. As if I'd just hand over evidence because he wanted his clothing back," he snorted, "never mind that the man gave it away of his own free will on his way to Heathrow yesterday."

"The jacket's his, that's good. What about the murder weapon?"

"That's why I'm here. Results just came in from fingerprinting - the letter opener had both Leighton and Mrs Leighton's fingerprints on it, as well as one set of strange prints, which could fit with Leighton's excuse of a burglary gone wrong. Could also fit the Fr- uh, Holmes' theory, the homeless person who had the jacket would have checked the pockets for cash and the like, they would have handled it then before putting it back. We're lucky they didn't just ditch it."

Lucky indeed, and obviously Donovan had had a word with him on the subject of juvenile name-calling. Good. Maybe his team would show a bit more respect for the consulting detective now.

"Anyway, only one set of prints matched the pattern for the right grip needed to stab someone, and they were Leighton's. We also found a blood spot inside the pocket and ran it - it was Mrs Leighton's blood. So there's her blood on his jacket, his prints on the murder weapon in the right formation needed to stab someone with, a solid theory as to what happened there - that's enough to put him away even if he doesn't confess when confronted with the evidence."

"Good. That's another case solved, and in record time, too. Take Donovan down to the detention cells and book him, would you?"

"Yes, sir."

As Anderson departed, Greg sat back in his chair and sighed. If only all their cases were over that fast. He really should let Sherlock loose in the Cold Case room for a few days. They had hundreds of unsolved crimes in there, from homicide to theft to arson, and he was sure Sherlock would relish it as a chance to stave off the boredom of John being away for a while. He would discuss it with him when he arrived later on; there would be conditions, of course, the main ones being that no evidence went missing, no files were tampered with, and that Sherlock left the room as neat and tidy as he had found it - they really didn't have time to be picking up after him if he decided to leave the files all over the floor when he was done with them.

He'd have a word with him, then. A strict word. With threats of no cases for a month if he left the room looking like a tip.

That decided, Greg went back to the paperwork, but he was barely half a page into it when his mobile rang. He dug a hand into his hand and pulled it out, hitting the 'answer' button and lifting it to his ear without checking the caller i.d.

"Lestrade."

"Greg, is that you? Please tell me I have the right number this time."

The line was crackly, but the voice was unmistakeable. "John Watson?"

"Yeah, it's me. Here's a hint for the future, mate - don't call international if you don't have to, turns out it's hellishly complicated and time consuming." There was more than a hint of stress in his voice.

"John - " Greg couldn't even think, why one earth was John ringing him from halfway across the world? "John, are you alright? Why are you calling?"

"Yeah, nah, I'm fine, Greg, absolutely fine. Hey listen, have you heard from Sherlock lately?"

Greg frowned, "Yeah, I spent half the day with him yesterday. We had a homicide called in down in Greenwich. He tagged along, solved it in five minutes, and spent the afternoon hunting down the murder weapon. Why?"

"Oh, no reason, really. It's just that I just checked my emails, and there was one from him that was sent about six hours ago," John was trying hard to keep his voice calm, but beneath the casual veneer there was tight worry and, Greg had a feeling, a barely contained string of swear words, "And, uh, this email says that he's on his way to New Zealand."

Dead silence.

_What?_ Greg was in shock. He'd seen Sherlock only last night, and the man hadn't said anything about it. But then again, knowing Sherlock, he would have decided to do it on a whim, and he wouldn't have wanted to tell anyone who would want to stop him anyway. He really was an impulsive child at times, perfectly willing and able to leap before he looked, and to heck with any consequences.

(_"Childish." "Well I'm dealing with a child."_)

He could feel the tension building from John's end of the line, and counted silently...

Three.

Two.

One.

There was a violent stream of profanities as John finally let go of his tenuous restraint. He'd obvious learnt more than medicine and coolness under fire during his time in Afghanistan: half of his words weren't in English, and the only repeatable ones that Greg could understand were "stupid" and "idiot" and then "stupid idiot".

Greg grinned. The doctor was so predictable sometimes.

"John."

More swearing.

"John!"

"Yeah, Greg?"

"That isn't helping matters."

Heavy breathing, and then: "You're right. It's true though - he is a stupid idiot."

"I fully agree with you, mate, but I need you to fill me in. Give me information, John. What did his email say?"

"I'll forward it to you in a minute. Basically he said that London was boring so he was coming to join me in New Zealand, and that he was sitting at Heathrow waiting for his flight while he wrote it. "

Greg exhaled a rough breath, "Right. Okay, that gives us a starting point. I'll need to do some research, find out which flight he's on, where his stopover is, what time he's meant to be getting in - "

"It's in the email."

"It's - what?"

"In the email. He put all the details in the email. Flight number, aircraft type, arrival and departure times, everything. I think he was bored waiting around at the airport, so he stuffed as much detail into it as he could. Said he wanted me to meet him at the airport when he got into Christchurch, too." John snorted. "Idiot. He'll be lucky if I don't throttle him for this."

"Join the club," Greg agreed wholeheartedly. "We can't just let him go haring off across the world by himself, there's no telling what might happen - he'll probably get kidnapped or lost or offend someone enough to be thrown off the flight in midair. I think I'll have to call the big guns in for this one, mate."

There was a definite grin in John's voice; he could hear it over the line. "Be my guest. Sherlock's not going to listen to either of us, is he?"

It was a rhetorical question. Greg make a murmur of agreement, and then a thought struck him and he groaned, "Did he say anything about luggage?"

"In the email? Nothing." There was a pause as John caught on to his train of thought, "You don't think - "

"I wouldn't put it past him. Idiot."

"Idiot indeed. I bet he doesn't even know that the seasons are backward in the Southern Hemisphere. He's probably sitting on the plane in shirt sleeves and maybe a light suit jacket."

"That's all he was wearing yesterday," Greg said, "If you're right - and you know him better than I do, no matter that I've known him longer - he'll get a nasty shock when he touches down in Christchurch."

There was a chuckle from John, "Serves him right, the nutter. And his stopover's at Dubai, that won't prepare him for a Southern Winter at all."

"You're right, it won't," Greg agreed. "Alright, I'd better call Big Brother before there's any more damage done. You forward me that email, yeah? I'll flick you a reply once I know what's happening."

"Will do. Thanks, Greg."

"No worries. Be in touch soon."

He rang off and ran a hand over his face. _Sherlock, you impulsive idiot. _But this was what the younger Holmes did best, really - just took off on his own, leaving everyone else to look after him as best they could and to pick up the pieces after him.

Time to call the elder Holmes, then. This was not going to be fun.

He took a moment to just breathe, and then dialled a number he hadn't used in more than four years. The dial tone rang for ten seconds too long, and was picked up halfway through the pause between beeps, at just the right moment to throw the caller off balance. Greg curled the corner of his lip. Still the same old Mycroft, then.

"Hello, Detective Inspector."

He cleared his throat nervously. "Mr Holmes."

"I assume my brother has done something that is... how shall I put this politely... less than intelligent?" Mycroft didn't even sound mildly annoyed.

_Enjoy the peace while it lasts, mate, _Greg thought irreverently, _You're in for a bit of a surprise._

"You could say that, yeah. I've just had a call from John."

"Oh really?" Now there was a hint of surprise - and not the pleasant sort, either - in his voice. "And what did Doctor Watson want?"

"He, ah... he had an email from your brother. Apparently Sherlock's on his way to New Zealand. As in, he's actually on the plane. Right now."

Greg held his breath.

There was a beat of silence, and then Mycroft murmured, "That _idiot child._"

"Yeah, that was about my reaction, too."

"I'll have the surveillance feeds from the flat checked," the return from exasperated older brother to unflappable government official was almost immediate, "I would have had his passport tagged to prevent him leaving the country, but after what happened last time, well... but that's best not talked about."

Greg grinned, "Oh, no need for that. Sherlock - "

"Included the details in the email, of course. How thoughtful."

He rolled his eyes. And there was the Holmesian talent for irritating the heck out of you making its belated appearance.

"Ah, here we go," came Mycroft's smooth tones again. Greg realised he must have John's email up on his screen - the email that was definitely addressed to greglestrade .uk, not mycroftholmes .uk. He buried his indignation and listened.

"Sherlock left Heathrow on the four thirty flight to Dubai, where he will land at eleven thirty this morning, our time." Greg glanced at his watch - it was 9am. "He has a four hour stopover there before boarding the plane to Auckland at three thirty this afternoon. He will get into Auckland at seven thirty tomorrow morning, and then has another flight straight away to Christchurch, where he would like Doctor Watson to meet him at nine in the morning our time tomorrow."

"So... what do we do? We can't just let him go galloping off to New Zealand by himself, there's no telling what sort of trouble he'll get into on the way over there. Should we get in touch with Dubai and ask them to turn him around?"

There was a soft (and incredibly scary, if Greg was honest with himself) laugh from the other end, "Oh, no, Inspector, I think we can do much better than that."

The sound of rapid typing came through the phone, and then Mycroft spoke again, "I have a job for you."

Greg frowned, "What? No. Thank you, but no - I already have a job."

"Mmm. Actually, as of," a deliberate pause, "well, _now_... you have been granted paid leave for two weeks."

"You - _what?_" it was a barely-restrained yell. Furious at the typical Holmesian high-handedness, Greg stood and strode to the window, glaring unseeing out at the traffic below. "No. No, I can't be on leave. I have cases to investigate, I have a team that needs me, no."

"Unfortunately for you, I have someone who needs you more."

"Oh come off it!" Literally speechless with anger, he dropped the phone from his ear and took a moment to calm down before lifting it again and continuing, "Mycroft, I can't just take off for two weeks because your brother's done something idiotic. I'm not his handler."

"Aren't you?" was the cooly infuriating reply, "And yet you did so well at Dartmoor."

_Deep breaths, Greg, deep breaths. _"Look, it's simple enough. Contact Dubai, tell them to get security ready and put him on the next flight back to England. Just like that, quick and easy, over in no time."

"Sherlock, easy?" A short laugh, "You know my brother, Detective Inspector. Do you really think there is any airport security in the world that could hold him? He is very nearly as intelligent as I am, and twice as athletic - he'd be out the door and lost in the city in no time, and then we would really have a job trying to find him. In fact, with all the maps he keeps in his head, it would nearly impossible - I wouldn't put it past him to have looked up and memorised detailed street maps of Dubai, Auckland, and Christchurch before even boarding the plane."

There was a rustle from the other end of the phone as the 'minor official' shifted his weight, his tone softening ever so slightly, "Gregory. You rang me, remember? You need my help, and if that help involves you having a two week paid holiday, why are you complaining?"

Greg pressed his forehead to the glass of the window and closed his eyes in defeat. "Alright. What's your plan, then?"

"Go home and pack, Inspector, and then I need you to go to the Baker Street flat and gather some clothes for Sherlock - if I know my brother, he'll have completely forgotten that it's winter in New Zealand. The car will pick you up from there at ten o'clock. I'll arrange everything else."

"Right. What do I need? Passport? Traveller's cheques? A gun?"

"No, no paperwork, nothing like that. I told you, I'll organise everything else. Feel free to bring any weaponry, though. It's unlikely that you'll need to threaten Sherlock at gunpoint if he doesn't behave himself, but you never know, there might be another Dewer's Hollow in Christchurch. You're better to take a gun and not need it than need it and not have it."

"Good point. Alright, I'd best be on my way then."

"Goodbye, Detective Inspector. Do have a nice holiday."

Greg ended the call, fought with himself for a moment, and then let out a single vehement exclamation that would have earned him a cuff around the head from his mother.

_Of all the high-handed, over-bearing, arrogant - _

He took a deep breath in, held it for a moment, and let it out slowly. Time to get moving. He only had forty minutes to get home, pack, go to Baker Street, and grab Sherlock's things.

Striding for the door, he almost bumped into Donovan coming the other way.

"Sir? Has something happened?"

No doubt she'd seen him on the phone through the glass walls of his office; probably heard a few of his outbursts, too, the room wasn't exactly soundproof.

"Yeah, Sherlock's brother happened. Sorry, I have to run."

And with that Greg was past her and out the door, downstairs, into the Beamer and pulling out into traffic. Taking all the shortcuts he knew and pushing the speed limits, he made it home in twelve minutes. It took him another ten to pull the old blue duffel bag down from above the wardrobe and stuff it full of clothes, toiletries, ammunition, and two guns, and then five minutes more to fill a day pack with his laptop, chargers, a couple of small books, his passport (just in case), a jersey, a third gun, his leather ammunition belt, and a box of nicotine patches.

He hit the living room at Baker Street at the thirty-four minute mark and spent a fruitless sixty seconds searching Sherlock's room for any luggage before giving up and taking the stairs to John's room two at a time. The doctor's spare kit bag was shoved at the bottom of his wardrobe - it was a drab sandy taupe where his primary kit bag was standard army olive green, though both bags had his name, rank, regiment, and country of origin embroidered on them . Greg was dragging the bag out of John's wardrobe when his phone rang. It was Mycroft.

"You will need to include one of Doctor Watson's suits in Sherlock's bag as well, please."

"Roger that," Greg's forcedly polite tone as he hung up was at complete odds with his eye roll, but luckily the elder Holmes didn't have cameras in the flat that he knew of, or at least not in the bedrooms. Swearing under his breath, Greg grabbed the plainest suit he could find, consisting of black trousers, dark blue shirt, and a black jacket - the rest of them were horrendous, John really did have terrible dress sense sometimes - and stuffed it into the bag before lugging it downstairs and dumping it on Sherlock's bed.

The archetypal coat and scarf were draped across the back of Sherlock's armchair, with his leather gloves making a lump in the side pocket; he scooped them up, carried them back to the bedroom and shoved them in the bag. Shirts, trousers, jackets and underthings joined them in the bag in short order, along with a rather stretched cable knit jumper of John's that was lying in the corner, the book lying open on the bedside table, and various toiletries from the adjoining bathroom.

The black car was already outside when he made it downstairs with the kit bag, and the driver was transferring Greg's gear from his BMW to the boot of the Jaguar X-type. Greg frowned and patted his hip pocket - the keys were still there.

He sighed for the dozenth time that day - _blasted Mycroft -_ and moved forward to dump John's bag in the open boot. "Just remember to lock the Beamer after you, yeah?"

"Of course, sir." The driver closed the lid and moved around the car to open the door for him. "Good morning."

"Morning," Greg managed a nod of greeting and slid onto the sir-conditioned car. The backseat was black leather, smooth and luxurious. Oh, he could get used to this and no mistake.

"Hello, Detective Inspector," came a greeting from beside him.

Greg looked sideways and groaned.

This was going to be a loooong trip.


	4. Sherlock, Greg, and Mycroft on a plane

**National Novel Writing Month November 2012**

**I don't own BBC Sherlock. This story was written as my NaNoWriMo 2012 project: it has 7 chapters, 6 of which are in order; the 7th is actually chapter 16 of my outline. It's just over 50,000 words, and is technically incomplete, as I do not plan on filling in the missing chapters from 7-15 and 16-?. That said, it's a good read and not half bad for having been written entirely in a month. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Reviews are love.**

* * *

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in the hard plastic seat, slouching and trying to find some way of stretching his legs out in front of him, but the row of chairs opposite prevented this theory from being practically applied. Giving up on maintaining a presentable public image, he stuck his feet up on the chair in front of him, relishing the stretch of muscles in his calves and thighs.

Aaaaah, that was much better.

The flight from London to Dubai had been hellish. The seats were cramped, the aeroplane was crowded (which was surprising, he would have thought a four thirty a.m. flight would have been rather empty), the complimentary coffee was tepid and resembled water more than anything else, he hadn't even dared try the tea, the food was given out in tiny portions and looked highly suspicious from a healthy preparation viewpoint (not that he had planned on eating anything anyway), and the company... urgh, the company.

The girl sandwiched next to him must have been a cousin of the perky blonde from John's journey. Within the first ten minutes she had informed him of her name (Naomi Worn, as if he cared), height (five foot five and a half, as if the half an inch made any significant difference), weight (one hundred and twenty pounds, as if she was, for some unfathomable reason, proud of this fact), country of origin (the United States of America, as if he hadn't already deduced it from the stunningly obvious fact of her accent), country of birth (Germany, as if he was meant to be interested in the fact that her parents had been travelling across Europe at the time), and he was very nearly positive that she would have given him her - what was it? oh yes - social security number if he hadn't shut her up by a well placed and _entirely accidental _stomp on her foot as he placed his backpack on the overhead luggage rack.

She had subsided for a few minutes, but the slack was promptly picked up by the passenger on her other side, who had heard the comment about being born in Germany and turned out to be a History Professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich in, surprise surprise, Germany.

How lovely. The world really was rather small. Sherlock rolled his eyes, turned his back on his fellow passengers at an angle that was just bordering on rude, and stared out the window for the first three hours as they prattled on about the heritage of the _Universität. _The Professor had a German accent that made everything slightly difficult to understand_. _The American girl said she had taken a few German History classes, (by which she clearly meant she'd done a one term paper on Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, and World War Two - really, who _hadn't_ studied that? - and had spent most of her time either fooling around at the back of class or else skipping class completely to snog her boyfriend behind the gym) but was nodding politely and interjecting what she obviously thought were intelligent remarks as the _Privatdozent _went into far too much detail about the fact the University was originally established in Ingolstadt in A.D. 1472 by Duke Ludwig IX, then moved in A.D. 1800 to Landshut by King Maximilian I when Ingolstadt was threatened by the French, before being relocated to its present-day location in Munich in A.D. 1826 by King Ludwig I.

Sherlock had shuddered and promptly deleted the overheard, unwelcome, and utterly useless barrage of information.

By the end of three hours the girl's enthusiasm was flagging, and it appeared that the Professor would be more than happy to spend the entire seven hour flight talking about the history of the University and the surrounding area. Unable to cope with much more of the incessant verbiage, Sherlock disrupted the flow of information by pushing past his seat mates on the pretext of heading to the bathroom. As he strode away down the aisle he heard the Professor ask "Now, where was I?" and the American answer politely, "You were just telling me about your conference in London, Professor."

He spent as long as he dared in the blessed solitude of the bathroom, and when he returned to his seat twenty minutes later, the girl was recounting a slightly more tolerable story about her boarding school.

"And then Annie noticed that all her clothes were gone; we'd snuck them out of the bathroom while she was in the shower - oh, sorry!"

He ignored her (and coincidentally, also ignored John's voice in his head saying "At least smile at her, Sherlock, a smile's as good as an apology and you don't even have to speak. Even a grimace that could be mistaken for a smile in bad light would be better than nothing,") as he climbed past her back to his seat. It was worth the offended silence and muttered "well that's rude," for her to not even attempt to talk to him for the entire rest of the flight.

The boarding school prank was in no way, shape, or form original, nor even funny. Oh, it was all 'harmless fun' on the part of the perpetrators, but in truth it was childish bullying, scare tactics, _laughing on the outside dying on the inside_ humiliation for the victim. And it was humiliation that stayed with the victim, too. There was always a small part of their mind, however well buried, that said _they have seen you naked and humiliated, they have the advantage over you. Lower your eyes, bare your neck in submission, give way to them. They are your superiors._

And of course it was all complete and utter rubbish, but the damage was never as easily fixed as merely giving the victim a talking-to about how _it wasn't your fault, you're smarter than them, better than them. _Instinct was an incredibly hard thing to overcome; but it could be done eventually, with a lot of patience and effort.

He spent the last four hours before landing at Dubai in the surface layer of his thoughts, deep enough to pass time but not so fully immersed that he was unaware of his surroundings: not that he would have any chance of getting out into the aisle in case of an emergency anyway, the American girl had stretched her shorter legs out so that they completely blocked his path of egress.

And now Sherlock was sitting uncomfortably in a stiff plastic seat in one of the many waiting areas at Dubai International Airport, bored out of his mind as he whiled away the remaining two hours before his next flight. If anyone had warned him about the horrors of public aeroplanes, he would have seriously rethought this plan. Eleven days of John-less boredom was almost - _almost -_ preferable to this hellish two days of flying in public aircraft.

The journey was almost halfway over, at least: and he comforted himself with the thought that he'd have John's company for the flight home, which would make everything infinitely times better in all possible sectors, from conversation to public relations to _understanding him - _and that was still a marvel, still something that rendered him absolutely speechless when he stopped and took the time to think about it in the wee small hours of the morning, that he'd found someone who: a) could live with him ("_Oh, this could be very nice_"), b) had actually made an effort to get to know him ("_You don't have a girlfriend then?"_), c) hadn't run off the moment he'd done something that was typical for him but seen as thoughtless for anyone normal ("_Do you know where I can get a cab from?_"), d) had taken his side against officers of the law ("_Seriously? This guy, a junkie? Have you met him?_"), e) had taken his side against a mysterious, knowledgable, and powerful enemy ("_I just met a friend of yours..._"), f) had killed a man in order to save his life ("_He wasn't a very good cabbie, though._"), and all within twenty four hours of meeting him for the first time.

It was unprecedented. He'd enjoyed the look on Mycroft's face the next time they met after John moved in; it was somewhere between relieved (because at last he wasn't solely responsible for his younger brother's wellbeing) and incredulous (because none of them ever in a million years thought that something like this was possible), with a dash of pure amusement thrown in (because this situation had neither been orchestrated by Mycroft nor predicted by Sherlock, and wasn't that a novel concept). And since then John had become Sherlock's best friend (_he had a friend! a best friend!_), and had found a kindred spirit in Greg, which in turn had brought down some of the barriers between Sherlock and Lestrade that they hadn't been able to breach by themselves, so now Greg was a friend as well (_friends friends friends he had friends_), and even Mycroft had started warming slightly, as much as the supposedly emotionless Iceman ever could.

Sherlock sighed.

This was all a very fine and dandy state of affairs, but it didn't change the fact that he was stuck in this airport for another hour and seven minutes with nothing to do.

He looked around despairingly. Nothing. Oh, there were ebbs and flows of foot traffic, people rushing around desperate to catch a flight or find a child or gather their luggage, but people, people were boring, they were just white noise in the background of his life. And so he retreated into his thoughts for an a fleeting eternity of time (_twenty seven minutes_, whispered the grandfather clock in the Second Gallery of his mind palace), jolting back to reality when someone sat down beside him.

"Hello, Sherlock. Fancy bumping into you here."

Sherlock turned his head and stared in disbelief.

"Of course," the person went on, "I'd have preferred to bump into you somewhere closer to home, like anywhere in England, really - "

He could feel himself turning pale. This was a very strange experience.

" - or even anywhere in The British Isles; but then we don't always get everything we want, do we?"

There was a dangerous glint in his seat mate's eyes, a glint that said _you might just want to answer me_. Sherlock managed a strangled grunt of agreement.

"Knew you'd see it my way," went on the man calmly. "Which is why you're going to get up very slowly and calmly and come with me."

Sherlock held his breath and debated with himself for a moment; but that glint was intensifying in the man's eyes, the glint that said _I am very angry right now and I will not hesitate to take it out on you, right here in front of dozens of people._ He did the smart thing and stood up, shouldering his backpack.

"You're not quite as idiotic as I thought," his seat mate murmured wryly, rising to his feet as well, "now, we're going down this way."

They made their way almost to the other end of the airport before turning and heading out onto a private runway. Sherlock saw the jet sitting on the tarmac and groaned.

"This is all Mycroft's doing, isn't it?"

"Now why would you think that?" The other man muttered.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and didn't reply.

They ascended the portable stairs together and went forward into the main cabin.

He scowled at the man already sitting there. "Mycroft. Obviously you couldn't get Lestrade to do all of your dirty work for you."

A familiar firm hand on his shoulder pressed him down into a leather armchair, "Sherlock, sit down and shut up."

"Why should I?" The indignation was flowing fast now, "I'm perfectly able to take care of myself, you had no right to interfere, Mycroft - "

"Oh, this wasn't all him," Lestrade's voice was stern, hard as steel (_"It stops being fake if we find anything"_), and Sherlock fought the urge to itch at his arm again. "You have to learn, Sherlock, you can't just go running off. It's... how would John put it... more than a bit not good."

"This is ridiculous!" He made to stand up.

"_Sit - down!_" Lestrade was looming over him.

He sat.

"Now, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this hard way; either way John ends up hearing about this little escapade directly from you. Are you scratching your arm?"

"What - no!" Sherlock jerked his hand away from his forearm, "Well yes, but it was itchy. Am I not allowed to itch my arm, now? Did they pass a law?"

"Perfectly legal in most circumstances, but when it comes to you, I'm starting to wonder." The older man's voice was still deadly calm. He reached down and slid Sherlock's sleeve up above his elbow in one smooth movement, turning the limb first one way and then the other, examining it for signs of anything other than plain scratch marks.

Sherlock looked past Lestrade - Greg, his name was Greg, much more familiar, more intimate, more _friendly_ - to Mycroft, who was still sitting silently in his armchair and watching the proceedings with interest. He jutted his head forward slightly and lifted an eyebrow - _You didn't have to get involved. I was fine._

Mycroft replied with widened eyes and upturned palms. _Do I look involved? _

Sherlock shot him a dirty look more effective than any spoken words and turned his attention back to Greg.

His arm was clean - no bruises, no track marks, just a reddened patch with stark white lines on the skin where he'd been itching near the elbow.

"Satisfied?" Sherlock sniped, rolling the sleeve down and buttoning the cuff.

"Not quite," Greg answered quietly. He moved around to the front of the chair and planted a hand on either arm of it, leaning in so that Sherlock had no choice but to maintain eye contact. Sherlock was struck by a sudden and rather uncomfortable thought that this was how a concerned father might act. He leaned back and swallowed nervously.

"Was it just itchy, or was it - you know - _itchy?_" The anger in Greg's eyes was giving way to worry, now (but Sherlock hadn't done anything so why was he worried, and never mind the reason, it was still making him feel warm and fuzzy and ashamed and sick and confused, and the man had no right to inflict these emotions on him but he was doing it anyway without even trying).

There was something in Sherlock that responded to the tone or to the man himself or to the genuine worry in his eyes, something that made him feel almost child-like again, that inspired childlike honesty, and he lowered his eyes and hunched his shoulders and admitted reluctantly, "The second one."

A sigh gusted over the top of his head. "Alright. Thank you." One of Greg's hands moved restlessly on the armrest, almost as if to cover his hand or clasp his shoulder; but he stepped back and sank into the armchair beside Sherlock.

"It's not serious," Sherlock added, "It's just - well, John being away, and London being boring..." he shrugged, "I can handle it."

"Oh yeah, you've proved that alright. Nothing like running off to New Zealand without telling anyone to show that you can handle your problems," was the immediate and sarcastic rejoinder.

Mycroft cleared his throat delicately, "Do excuse me, gentlemen, I must have a word with the pilot. You may want to fasten your seat belts, we'll be taking off very soon."

Sherlock sat upright and stared at his brother, "Taking off? Mycroft, what - I'm not going back to England."

Mycroft ignored him, disappearing through the door toward to the cockpit. He swung his gaze to Greg, who shifted uncomfortably.

"Greg - " ah, use of the first name, always made them pay attention, good, "Greg, I'm not going back."

"I don't think you have a choice, Sherlock."

"All I have to do is walk off this aeroplane. It's not difficult."

Greg raised an eyebrow, "You really think we didn't think of that already? We're not stupid, you know."

Sherlock glared into the middle distance and muttered "debatable," under his breath.

Judging by Greg's unimpressed look, it wasn't as quiet as he thought.

"Once we're past takeoff, you're phoning John and explaining what's going and exactly what your part in all of this was."

"We're not taking off," Sherlock protested, "I'm not going back to England without John."

"You're going wherever this plane goes," was the determined reply.

Sherlock exhaled a disgusted sigh and turn away, staring out the window.

Ignoring the muttered "ah, there's the return of the sulking teenager," he watched in his peripheral vision as Mycroft entered the cabin and took his seat again.

An announcement came over the loudspeaker, "_Please fasten your seat belts. We are taking off in two minutes._"

Sherlock did so and sat silently until they were in midair, and the announcement came through that they were free to move about the cabin and would be arriving at their destination in ten hours. Still staring out the window, he unclipped his seat belt and slouched comfortably in the chair, relishing the leather armchair and excess of leg space after the cramped public flight and featureless waiting room.

"You've told him, then?" came the soft inquiry from his older brother.

"Oh, I told him alright," Greg murmured, "He knows he's not getting off this aeroplane until we touch down again."

"And he knows where we're going?"

"He's been very insistent about the fact that he's not going back to England without John," there was a hint of mirth in his voice.

Sherlock huffed; being dragged back to London was hardly a laughing matter.

"It's a good thing we're not going back to England, then," and there was definitely a light note in his brother's voice.

Wait... what?

"We're not?" he blurted, swinging around to face them. They were both looking at him, Mycroft with a smirk and Greg grinning broadly.

"No, we're not. Not right away, anyway," Greg leant forward, "We're heading to New Zealand for two weeks."

Sherlock stared, "oh."

He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, "I wouldn't have thought Scotland Yard would just let you go for two weeks?"

"About that... they didn't." Greg nodded toward Mycroft, "Your brother decided to give me two weeks' paid leave without actually asking me. The flight here was a bit of a shouting match on my part, I'm afraid."

Sherlock grinned brightly, "I'm sure he deserved it."

"Oh, he did. He also neglected to tell me that he would be, ah, accompanying me; I found out when I hopped in the Jag and there he was. That was a bit of a surprise, let me tell you."

"Mmm, that would be a nasty shock," he agreed, and turned to Mycroft, "Can you spare the time away from the office, brother dearest?"

"I rather thought this was a situation that needed handling..." Mycroft paused delicately, "personally. I've left Andrea in charge back in London."

"You don't travel without an assistant," Sherlock stated, adding mockingly, "Someone needs to fetch you coffee and cake."

Mycroft ignored the barb. "Audrey is accompanying me on this endeavour. She's a little rough around the edges - I need to arrange a few more months of training once we return to England - but I don't anticipate the presence of any tasks that will be beyond her."

"Tasks?" Greg asked sharply.

"Mmm, yes. This isn't just a holiday, you know."

Sherlock leant forward, rested his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers. "Explain."

Mycroft glanced between the two of them and sighed. "Very well then." He pressed the intercom button on the wall, "Audrey, please bring the files for the Christchurch briefing through into the main cabin."

A few minutes passed before a petite brunette woman (_hair cut short and spiky, blue eyes, standard business attire of black trousers and white shirt; single, no pets, minimal makeup, nails cut short and sharp, unpainted; possible lower-class background, would explain the "rough around the edges" comment_) came through the door from the cockpit. She handed the three men a manila folder each, answered Mycroft's "Thank you, my dear," with an easy smile, and retreated.

Sherlock opened his folder and flipped through the printouts as Mycroft began to brief them.

"New Zealand: a country made up of three main islands - the North Island, the South Island, and Stewart Island, which is just south of the South Island. They also count the Chatham Islands as part of their territory, which is a group of ten islands about seven hundred kilometres south-east of New Zealand. The capital city is Wellington, population four hundred thousand, located at the south end of the North Island; however the largest city is Auckland, population one and a half million, near the top of the North Island. The country functions under a Constitutional Monarchy: they recognise the Queen as Monarch and the Governor-General as her representative, but the country is run in practice by the Prime Minister, currently Johnathan Kay, and his Cabinet.

"The people of New Zealand are known as New Zealanders or 'Kiwis'. The word kiwi has three meanings in New Zealand: Kiwi with a capital is a person from New Zealand and the plural form ends in s; kiwi with a small k refers to the bird and the plural form is the same as the singular, due to its Maori origin; and kiwi_fruit_, elsewhere known as 'kiwi' or 'chinese gooseberry', refers of course to the fruit.

"The population throughout the country is made up of approximately eighty percent New Zealanders of European descent, known as _Pākehā, _fifteen percent native Maori, and five percent Other, mostly Asian and Pacific peoples. There is, of course, significant intermarriage between these groups, and sharing of cultures, languages, and so on. New Zealand has three official languages, though only English is used widely; _te reo Maori_ appears on many signs and place names bi-lingually, but is fluently spoken by only five percent of the population; however, snippets of the language have entered general use and make up a portion of Kiwi slang. The third language is New Zealand Sign Language, which is only used sporadically in the mainstream."

Sherlock yawned. Mycroft ignored him.

"New Zealand is historically a rural country, even though most of the population now lives in urban areas; there is still a strong colonial aspect to the culture, characterised by a Do-It-Yourself attitude, environmental consciousness, and general independence and self-reliance. The economy is largely focused on agricultural exports, of which wool is the largest; there are around fifty million sheep in New Zealand and four and half million people, meaning there over ten times as many sheep as people.

"We are heading to Christchurch, which is approximately one third of the way down the East Coast of the South Island and is the South Island's largest city, with a population of around three hundred and fifty thousand people. Christchurch is known by a number of sobriquets, including 'Chch', 'The Garden City', and, more recently, 'Quake City'. The last of these names is due to the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, which of course we all know about."

He looked significantly at Sherlock, who ignored him.

"Christchurch is bordered to the East by the Pacific Ocean, to the South by Lyttleton Harbour and the Port Hills, and to the North by the Waimakariri River. It is one of only four cities in the world to be designed around the same layout of a central city square, four complementing city squares surrounding that, and a parkland area around the entire city centre. Christchurch's city square is known as Cathedral Square; only two of the four surrounding squares, Cranmer and Latimer, are still in existence; and Hagley Park borders the Central City on the West. So it didn't exactly follow the plan but it wasn't far off."

Sherlock yawned again, loudly, and moved restlessly in his chair, "All of us here do in fact have the ability to read, Mycroft. As in, we can do it ourselves, in our own time. Skip to the important part."

Mycroft glanced from Sherlock to Greg, who nodded his head casually.

"Might as well, he'll absorb the background details better by reading them himself. What are we doing in New Zealand, anyway? Apart from reuniting the two boys who are so interdependent that they apparently can't go more than a week without seeing each other, that is."

Mycroft sighed, "Very well then. The relevant data is, I believe, on the second to last page."

Sherlock flipped to the appropriate page and skimmed the profile there, "Robert Barrow?"

"He is the current, and very popular, Mayor of Christchurch. Did an excellent job handling the earthquake emergencies: there is apparently a facebook page dedicated to the orange wheelbarrow he uses to help with the ongoing cleanup. Rob Barrow's barrow seems to be rather a public icon now."

"Fascinating," Sherlock muttered in the general direction of the ceiling, "but what does this have to do with us?"

"We're meeting with him in two days - well, one day, really. It is now five thirty Friday morning in New Zealand; we will arrive in Christchurch at eleven, and the meeting is at two thirty in the afternoon. So, yes, we're meeting with him in about ten hours."

"Are you? How nice."

"I think he means you too, Sherlock," Greg put in.

"No, surely not," Sherlock was still staring at the ceiling, "I'm horrible with public relations, remember? People are so mindlessly dull."

"Actually, Sherlock," Mycroft said, "all of us are meeting with him. Admittedly you have the lowest possible qualification for such an event out of the group; but I could hardly bar my own brother from the proceedings, could I?"

Sherlock tilted his head to stare at Mycroft, "Are you serious?"

"Utterly and completely serious. We shall be attending the meeting in an official capacity as representatives of Her Majesty's Government: as such, you _will_ be on your best behaviour."

"Oh will I just?"

"Yes, Sherlock," Mycroft's voice was steely, "You will. International relations are no trifling matter, and the media will likely be present for at least part of the meeting. I'm sure we can arrange to have you seated between Doctor Watson and Detective Inspector Lestrade, in case of any... mishaps."

Sherlock sighed, "Oh alright. I'll try not to upset your precious diplomatic mission. Cross my heart."

Mycroft regarded him for a long moment before nodding. "Thank you."

He grunted in response.

"Well, now that that's cleared up..." Greg leant over and deftly retrieved Sherlock's mobile from his jacket pocket.

"Hey!" Sherlock made a swipe for it and missed.

Greg grinned. "Uh uh, Sherlock. I told you that you were going to have to phone John."

"You can't use mobile phones on aircraft, it's illegal," he protested.

The older man laughed, "Yeah? And since when have you cared about whether something's legal or not?"

"Besides which, it interferes with the flight electronics."

"Not on this aeroplane it doesn't," put in Mycroft smoothly, "technology has advanced wonderfully since the 1990's, you of all people should know that, Sherlock."

"It's quarter to six in the morning over there, John won't be happy at being woken up this early."

"I emailed him," Greg countered, "and said to expect a call anytime after five. So he'll already be awake, and he'd be more annoyed if you don't call than if you do, because that would mean he woke up early for nothing."

Sherlock made a noise of disgust and gave in with as little grace as humanly possible, "Fine! I'll call him!"

Greg tossed the mobile his way, and Sherlock caught it one-handed.

"We'll be sitting here while you call," the older man warned, "and if you don't tell John the whole story, I for one will not hesitate to rip the phone from your hand and fill him in on all the juicy details myself."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and nodded understanding as he hit speed dial and lifted the phone to his ear.

It took a few minutes to connect. They were quite possibly the longest minutes of his life as he sat in the armchair with Greg beside him watching him casually and Mycroft opposite skim-reading a file (_but they weren't the longest moments, not really, nowhere near it; he could think of any number of longer ones, like when John was strapped into that Semtex at the pool, or the countdown when the CIA were preparing to shoot the doctor at The Woman's house, or the awful moment in Dewer's Hollow when Moriarty's face grinned manically at him from beneath the gas mask..._)

The call connected.

"Hello, Sherlock."

"John," his mouth was suddenly quite dry; he worked up some saliva and licked his lips, "hi."

Silence for a moment, and then John said, "Well? I'm waiting."

"I... don't know what you want me say."

A sigh, "Well for starters, where are you?"

"On Mycroft's jet. With him and Greg. Three, maybe four hours out of Dubai."

"Mycroft's there?" John sounded puzzled.

"Yeah. Apparently I need personal handling or something."

"Oh, that'd be right, too." Now he sounded annoyed.  
Sherlock swallowed nervously and didn't reply.

"Alright, then," John took a breath and said, calmer now, "Tell me what happened."

Sherlock frowned, mind startlingly blank of hypothetical starting points. On a sudden impulse he hit the 'speaker' button on the mobile and laid it on the arm rest, leaning forward to let his elbows rest on his knees, hands steepled at his chins, staring at the floor, "I - "

He shook his head, swallowed, and then suddenly the words were pouring from him, "I woke up and you were gone."

A pause, and then, "that's it?" from John.

He nodded, shook his head, remembered that John wasn't in the room and shrugged, "Basically. You weren't there and then the cravings were and I tried to distract myself, I did, I swear I did, John, I experimented and I played the violin and explored upstairs and composed a sonata and did some more experiments, but then the kitchen blew up and I went to see Greg and he helped for hours, all day really, but then I was home again and it was dark and cold and lonely and there was nothing but the itching scratching cravings so I ran away."

Another sigh, "Ah," he could imagine John nodding understandingly, "the cravings are back then."

"They're cyclical in a fairly random way. Theoretically. They make an appearance every few years for an unpredictable length of time. Last time it was only two days, the time before that it was four months."

"Right. Good on you for not giving in, then."

Sherlock managed a ghost of a smile.

"... wait, did you say you explored upstairs?"

Oooooh dear. He could see Greg grinning unashamedly in his peripheral vision. "Yes, John."

"As in, _my room?_"

"Yes, John."

He could just see the gulp of air John inhaled to calm down, "Right. Okay."

"I... thought it might bring you home," Sherlock admitted quietly, "invasion of your territory and all that."

He didn't think he'd ever felt so vulnerable, so stripped bare, as with this one phone call to his best friend while in the presence of his brother and second friend.

"No, Sherlock, I'm afraid room invasions don't work like that. They just make me angry when I find out."

Greg was grinning again.

"Alright. I'll, ah, remember that for next time."

"No you won't, because there won't be a next time, will there?"

"Well theoretically I might need to access the flat through your bedroom window, or retrieve something from your medical kit - "

"Just say 'no, John, there will not be a next time.'"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and repeated dutifully if untruthfully, "No, John, there will not be a next time."

"Good. Glad we've got that sorted out. And you blew up the kitchen?"

"Only a small explosion. I'm sure it'll be sorted by the time we get home."

A sigh through the mobile, "By which you mean you didn't actually arrange for it to be fixed."

"Well, no. I was busy packing."

"But you will pay for it." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, John, I do understand that much of the social contract. I broke something, whether directly or indirectly, therefore I will fix it, whether directly or indirectly."

"Good. You might want to email the appropriate company and get that sorted now, then, before you forget. Or bully Mycroft into it, I'm sure he can spare the cash."

Sherlock chuckled, "Me bully Mycroft?"

He glanced at his brother, aware that the smirk twisting Mycroft's mouth was perfectly mirrored on his own face, and said, biting off the end of each word, "Not going to work."

"Why not? you've done it before."

"No I haven't, when did I do that?"

"Andrew West? The Bruce Partington Plans? The bomb going off on Baker Street? I came rushing back from Sarah's because I saw the news on the telly and thought you were - " He broke off, huffed a breath, and continued, "Anyway, Mycroft was there. You told him - "

Sherlock opened the bookmarked folder in his hard drive, found the right section, and said at the same time as John, "_The stuff I've got on is too big, I can't spare the time."_

"Exactly. And you had precisely _nothing_ on. I ended up investigating that one myself, until we bumped into each other down at the rail yard."

Sherlock followed the highlighted link in the file and blinked, "Do you know why that was?"

"Why... what was?" He could see John's puzzled frown in his mind's eye.

"Why I came to find you at the rail yard."

"Because you wanted to see the tracks for yourself, I'd assume."

"Not quite," he bit the words off again, and explained, "I'd been with Lestrade before that, remember? Questioning the art gallery woman about the fake Vermeer."

"Mmm, I remember."

Sherlock leant back in his chair, tilted his head toward the ceiling and watched the file open to the relevant page, "She said she'd been put in touch with people who knew other people, that sort of thing. She'd never had any real contact. Just messages. Whispers. I asked if those whispers had a name. She nodded, and said... _Moriarty_."

The name still filled him with a curious fascination, for the man and his mind, for having someone who was his _equal_; but that was blunted by the horror and the sheer fury of the pool, of John being strapped into a bomb, of the nightmares that had followed night after night for both of them, never spoken of, communicated only in the scent of tea in the wee small hours of the morning, the silent companionship sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, hands clutched white-knuckled around warm mugs, staring blearily at the tabletop, not daring to blink for fear of the dark spaces behind the eyes.

He hated the man.

"So you heard it was... _him_... and came to find me," John said quietly.

He nodded, "Precisely."

"I... thank you," John cleared his throat, "But that was still blackmail, you know. Telling Mycroft that so he'd give the file to me instead of you."

"Oh, that wasn't blackmail," Sherlock said flippantly, "It was outright lying, and he knew it."

"Mmm. It was also a mistake, you know," said John softly.

Sherlock paused at the sudden change in tone; his shoulders slumped, and he admitted soberly, "I know."

"What if you hadn't kept up with that case? Hadn't found the plans?"

Sherlock shrugged, "Wouldn't have set up the meeting then," then quieter, "Wouldn't have given him a reason to kidnap you."

"He would have done it anyway," was the _meant to be reassuring_ reply, "He was upping the game the whole time. The old woman? The child? It was only a matter of time. It wasn't your fault, Sherlock."

"I started it," almost a whisper, "Arranged the meeting. Wanted to meet him. Wanted to meet the person who was my _equal_," he laughed softly, bitterly, "walked right into it. Gave him the perfect excuse to get to you. I was so _blind_," he pulled his legs up onto the armchair and wrapped his arms around them.

Greg's hand twitched on his armrest.

Mycroft was frowning at his report, eyes unmoving, clearly listening.

Sherlock didn't care. Let them listen. Let them see him in all his glorious humanity.

"You couldn't have foreseen it. No one could have," John murmured through the phone.

"Should have. You're the obvious choice, you and Mycroft and Greg, all of you, you make me human, make me weak; you _are_ my weaknesses, the chinks in my armour. Ways to get my attention, ways to _destroy me_."

And that was the root of it, really, the fear that somewhere in his hard drive was the single command _if_Mycroft/Greg/John=dead, then_Sherlock=ENDGAME. _And the destruction increased exponentially from left to right, and even moreso in various combinations, and - he shivered - he really didn't want to think what would happen if all three of them were gone.

"You'd rather you didn't have us?" was the gentle query from John.

"No." Immediate, decisive. "No. I need you. All of you. I'm better with you. I don't - I don't want to be _him._"

"Sherlock - " shocked, dismayed.

"What? You're going to say it's not true, that I'm not like him, that I'm _not_ him? Because I am, John, I am him; or at least I'm so, so close to it that it really makes no difference. There's not so much a line between psychopath and sociopath as a small blurred area."

"You're not a sociopath."

"Oh I know I'm not really, but it's as good a label as any. You saw what I was like during the bomber case, I _didn't care_. I cannot empathise with the average person, I cannot bring myself to follow their little rules for a happy life, I can't even live with someone without committing any number of faux pas, and I simply don't care. I don't talk for days on end, I don't need people around me, I don't even _like_ having people around me. Being antisocial and having a lack of conscience are the two main traits of a sociopath."

He gulped air, "Shall I continue? Alright, let's have a look at the traits of psychopathy: inability to maintain normal relationships, check; antisocial behaviour, check; high impulsivity, check; predisposition toward violence, check -"

"_Sherlock. Stop._"

He halted, aware all of a sudden that he was trembling, his hands gripping each other white-knuckled, his breathing fast and uneven.

"Just calm down, alright? I can hear your breathing from here, your heart rate must be jumping like anything."

Sherlock unclenched his hands and steepled them, stilling the tremor in his fingers with minimal effort. He took a deep breath, in two three four five six seven, out two three four five six seven, deliberately slowing his breathing rate, settling his heartbeat, restoring his usual equilibrium, "Alright."

"You're fine?"

"I'm fine, John," and for life of him he couldn't stop the bite of impatience in his voice, mostly directed at himself for losing his composure even that much.

"Alright, you're fine. Good. Now I'm going to tell you something, Sherlock, and you're going to listen to me very carefully, understood?"

He reduced his visual receptors in order to increase aural retention, "Understood."

"You, Sherlock Holmes, are nothing - _nothing_ - like _him_. Let's go through those traits again, okay? You say you're antisocial: I say you're introverted. You say you lack a conscience: I say the Christmas party last year proves you startlingly wrong there - you knew that insulting Molly was horrible, you made amends of your own free will, you actually _apologised_ to her. You say you have an inability to maintain normal relationships: I say the fact that we've been flatting together for over a year now debunks that idea completely, not to mention you've known Greg over six years, and Mrs Hudson who knows who much longer than that," John paused for breath, "And quite beside those points, you wouldn't blow up a block of flats, causing numerous deaths and injuries, just to get his attention, would you? No, in fact all you did was post a message on your website. That's hardly the act of a criminal mastermind."

"Alright, so I'm not _him_. I'm still dangerously close; I have an almost complete lack of empathy, remember? Simply _not caring_ about quite a lot of things? "_There are lives at stake, Sherlock! Actual human lives. Just so I know, do you care about that at all?_" I told you once, John, don't make people into heroes, heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them."

"I do remember that, yes. And then you said you'd be lost without your blogger."

"No, that was earlier in the case."

A pause, "Was it?"

"Yes. But never mind that now. As it happens, the sentiment - sentiment, why do they call it sentiment, it's ridiculous - the sentiment is very apt. I would be - not exactly _lost _without you - "

There was a snort and a muttered, "Tell that to the kitchen repair guys," from John.

Sherlock half-grinned and went on, " - but as I said before, I need you. I need all of you, you and Greg and Mycroft and Molly and Mrs Hudson; you keep me on the slightly more human side of - whatever I am. I cannot - physically, mentally, biologically, literally cannot - care for the majority of human beings, I cannot care about their humdrum little lives or whether they live or die; but you and Mycroft and Greg, you make me care, you make me that much more human, that much weaker. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing, of course, but the benefits undoubtedly outweigh the disadvantages. It also means that you're prime targets for anyone who wants to get to me, as evidenced by the pool kidnapping."

A chuckle from John, "Yeah, well, there is that."

Sherlock scrolled back up his mental transcript of the conversation, "Anyway, um, I will get the kitchen fixed. I'll send them an email right now, assuming we have internet on the plane...?"

Mycroft nodded without looking up from the file in his hands.

"... yes, we do, excellent."

"Good, you do that," John was obviously smiling on the other end of the mobile, "I should go and get ready for the day; I'll see you at eleven, alright? Oh, and Sherlock - "

"Mmm?"

"Next time you think about taking off halfway across the world without telling anyone, bear in mind that I will come after you and drag your skinny backside right back where it belongs, and besides informing Mycroft and Greg so that the three of us can all shout at you, I will not make you tea for a week afterwards. Understood?"

"I was craving the drugs, John, I couldn't just stay there!"

John's voice was calm, "When the cravings start, Sherlock, you _tell someone_. I don't care if it's me or Greg or even Anderson, you tell someone so that they can help you. It's not an excuse for just hightailing it out of the country."

Sherlock sighed and locked into his short-term memory _drug_cravings=let_John/Greg_know. _"Okay, it's on my hard drive."

"Excellent. Email the repair company, drink something, have a nibble to eat if you can, try and sleep, and I'll see you in four hours."

"Yes, John" he rolled his eyes and added more sincerely, "See you soon."

"Bye, Sherlock."

He hit 'end call' on the mobile and placed it back in his jacket pocket.

Greg was staring at his book, clearly not reading, and appeared to be fighting a losing battle against a prolonged series of facial spasms.

"Is something amusing you, Detective Inspector?" Sherlock reached down beside his seat for his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out his laptop.

"Like an old married couple, you two are. Mood swings and fighting and confessing your secrets, you've got the whole lot."

"Mm," he agreed absently, opening his emails, "I believe the term is 'heterosexual life partners'. "

Greg laughed, "Oh, that'd be right, too. I stand corrected."

And with that he went back to his book.

Sherlock glanced around the cabin, met Mycroft's eyes with a cocked eyebrow, and returned to his laptop. He had an email to send.


	5. Sherlock, John, Greg and Mycroft in NZ

**National Novel Writing Month November 2012**

**I don't own BBC Sherlock. This story was written as my NaNoWriMo 2012 project: it has 7 chapters, 6 of which are in order; the 7th is actually chapter 16 of my outline. It's just over 50,000 words, and is technically incomplete, as I do not plan on filling in the missing chapters from 7-15 and 16-?. That said, it's a good read and not half bad for having been written entirely in a month. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Sorry for the long wait! Life got busy.**

**I love reviews ^_^ And more reviews means more chance of including deleting scenes once I've uploaded the whole thing.**

* * *

The best thing about Mycroft's private jet, Sherlock reflected, apart from the comfortable seats, excess of legroom, preferable company, and reduced travel time, was that you neither had to go through customs nor wait around for your luggage to come through on the conveyor belt. He was loaded up with his backpack and ready to disembark when Lestrade came through from the cargo area and threw John's spare kit bag at him.

"Here, genius. Your coat's in there, scarf and gloves are in the pockets. You'll want to put them on before we hop off the aeroplane. There's a pile of other clothing, a book, and an assortment of toilet stuff, too, I didn't know if you'd brought anything with you."

He levelled a Look at the older man, "I'm not that spectacularly ignorant, thank you."

"Alright," Greg held his hands up in surrender, "Just looking out for you. What did you bring, anyway?"

"Laptop, phone, chargers, a change of clothes, passport, wallet, and a small kit that is very carefully protected against metal detectors."

"Riiight. Well, no one can accuse you of not packing lightly, that's for sure."

Sherlock, who had shrugged out of his backpack and was now busy digging through the kit bag for his coat, didn't reply.

"It'll be near the bottom," Greg added mock-helpfully.

He grunted, stuck his arm further in, felt the familiar rough material and pulled it out. Within thirty seconds he was ready to go again, coat falling in its habitual folds to his knees, scarf wrapped warmly around his neck, hands in their black leather gloves, pack on his back and kit bag slung over his shoulder.

"Shall we?"

"Wait for your brother, Sherlock," Greg shouldered his own day pack and duffel bag, "It's only polite, the man did give us a lift here, after all."

Sherlock made a moue of annoyance, "We have to attend a diplomatic meeting with him; I think we're about even."

"Not even close to it," Mycroft interjected, coming through from the hold wheeling a suitcase in one hand and holding a briefcase in the other, Audrey at his heels, "Ready to go?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes at his brother and headed for the exit.

Once down off the plane, through the airport, and out to the passenger pickup area (_biting cold wind, cold cold cold, watery sun in a pale blue sky, air smelling of engine fumes and far too many people, incessant chattering on all sides, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, and oh it was cold, hands burrowed into his pockets chin burrowed into his scarf, cold cold cold_), they only had to wait five minutes before John pulled into a newly-vacated space in a dark green Toyota Prado.

"Need a lift, gentlemen... and... lady?" he raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised (_no subtlety, John, really, it's deplorable_), but grinned.

Sherlock lost no time in throwing his bags in the boot and claiming the front seat beside John, leaving the others to stow their own gear and scramble into the _spacious enough but not overwhelmingly so _backseat.

"Where are we headed?" was John's question.

"The Copthorne Hotel Commodore," answered Audrey, looking out the window interestedly.

"Right. And, ah, I don't mean to sound rude, but... who are you?"

"This is Audrey," Mycroft spoke up, "She will be my assistant for the trip. I left Anthea in charge back in London."

"Well, ah, good. Pleased to meet you, Audrey. Do we have directions to this hotel?"

"Out the main exit, straight through the roundabout and it's down maybe two minutes on your right," was Audrey's prompt reply.

"Roger that. Got your seat belts on, everyone?"

Murmurs in the affirmative.

"Sherlock?"

"Wh - _yes, _John."

"Good," he checked his mirrors, indicated, and pulled out into traffic, "Never can tell with you, you're a master at selective non answering. How was the flight, anyway?"

"Fine."

"Good."

"Excessive amounts of legroom, ostentatiously expensive seating, and exponentially preferable company to the public flight, even taking into account the presence of Mycroft."

Silence.

"What? I never said it was a bad thing."

"Mmm, see, Sherlock, you somehow managed to make those first two bits sound like they were complaints, and then that third part was a sort of very back-handed compliment," was Greg's acerbic comment from the backseat.

"My brother never did get the hang of thanking people," Mycroft remarked mock-mournfully, "But balancing out the 'presence of myself' with the 'exponentially preferable company', I do rather think we came out on top, thanks largely to yourself, Detective Inspector."

"Yeah, well, I'd certainly hope I'm preferable to a single mum with her crying baby or a snoring businessman or whoever he had to sit beside on his flight," Greg muttered in reply.

"A vivacious American girl who wouldn't shut up beside me, and a German history professor who also wouldn't shut up beside her. Add in the extreme lack of legroom, crowded aeroplane, and absence of a decent cup of coffee - I didn't dare try the tea - and the flight was truly hellish."

"Serves you right," came the simultaneous heartless reply from John and Greg, followed by "Jinx! Double jinx!"

Amongst the ensuing laughter, there was a sigh of "Boys..." from Mycroft.

"Oh, let them have their fun, Mycroft," Sherlock sniped, turning to look at him, "Just because _you_ never had a childhood."

"Did I not?" Mycroft replied softly, catching Sherlock's eyes with his own.

There was an uncomfortably long moment of silence during which Sherlock and Mycroft held each others' gazes, communicating sub-vocally and even sub-thoughtfully (_which was most vexing, as Sherlock could record a fairly accurate transcription of the former, but with the latter there was simply nothing at all to be recorded; it was all emotion and semi-shared memories_).

Audrey watched cautiously, Greg alternated between watching and trying not to, and John was half watching them and half watching the road. Finally Sherlock looked down and away, exhaled a breath, and turned to stare out his side window.

John cleared his throat, "Uh, there's the hotel."

They turned in to the hotel entrance (_large, white, clean, modern, much like any other hotel_) and parked near the front door.

"Audrey, would you - "

She was already slipping out the door on her way to reception.

" - thank you," Mycroft finished.

Sherlock snorted.

Greg shifted uncomfortably, "Should we get the bags out...?"

John was already opening his door, seizing the chance to escape the tense atmosphere of the four wheel drive. Sherlock shot a dark look back over his shoulder at Mycroft - _this is why I don't go on holiday with you, we haven't even been here ten minutes and we're fighting - _and followed suit.

By the time they had the gear unloaded, Audrey was back with the key card, a Manager trailing at her heels holding the paperwork.

"Booking for the Government Suite under the name of Holmes, sign here, here, and here, if you please."

Mycroft, standing to the side propped on his ever-present umbrella, took the pen and signed with a frosty smile.

"Thank you, sir, I hope your stay with us is enjoyable; do feel free to let me know if there is anything you need. Your suite is on the first floor, down the corridor to your left from the elevator and the stairs."

"Thank you."

The Manager trotted back inside.

Sherlock shouldered his backpack and kit bag and strode inside, slowing his steps slightly as he heard John's familiar footsteps catching up to him.

"Sherlock, look, I know you and Mycroft, ah, don't get on very well - "

"We don't get on at all."

"Alright, you don't get on at all, but would it hurt you to make an effort to be at least civil to him? Maybe try not to start any fights for the next few days? If you two are going to always be on the outs with each other, it's not going to be a very enjoyable holiday."

Sherlock glanced at John as they crossed the main foyer towards the stairs, "It's not my fault he's a - "

"Sherlock." John was giving him the _you're being childish_ look.

"He'll barely see us after today, anyway, he'll be too busy with meetings and international relations and foreign policies. He's here in an official capacity as a representative of the Queen, you know. All hail the glorious Empire, we love your quaint little colony, you've really spruced it up since we were last here, and that sort of thing. I'm sure the natives will just love him."

John sighed, "Well can you please just try to behave until then? Just for today, just for this meeting that you have to go to with him. You won't even have to talk, you can just sit beside him and observe everyone, try to pick out who's sleeping with who or what everyone had for lunch, or if someone from the media has snuck in somewhere they're not allowed to be. You are here as the official representative's younger brother, you know, quite besides being a consulting detective for Scotland Yard in your own right; that means you have to be on your best behaviour."

He snorted, "I wasn't aware I had a 'best behaviour' setting to be on; I suspect it requires large amounts of bribery to activate, though."

"How about this, then: do as you're told or you're getting straight on the next flight home?"

"Mmm, nope," Sherlock sighed mock-mournfully as they came around the landing on the stairs, "Because then I'll just get right back on the next flight to here from wherever the stopover is, so it would all be a whole lot of fuss and bother for no reason, besides being a complete waste of time and money."

They exited the stairs and turned left along the corridor.

"Alright then: do as you're told or you're going to get a right bollocking from the three of us, and I still won't make you tea for a month."

"Oh no, I'm going to get shouted at by the only three friends - or rather, two friends and a brother - that I have; that's never ever happened before, how will I ever survive?" Sherlock said, completely straight faced, before continuing, "I am capable of making my own tea, you know. It may not be quite up to your high standards of - whatever it is you do to make your tea utterly delicious -"

John didn't quite manage to smother his grin.

" - but it is still easily distinguishable from muddy water by both sight and taste, unlike the dreadful excuse for a cup of coffee they served me on the flight to Dubai."

"I still think that serves you abso-flipping-lutely right. Okay then: do as you're told or I'll ask Mrs Hudson to confiscate the skull... actually, come to think of it, I might even do it myself."

Sherlock shot him a scandalised look as they reached the rooms and dropped their bags outside, waiting for the others to arrive with the key card, "You wouldn't dare."

"Why not? You don't need it anymore; haven't needed it since I moved in, in fact."

"It's the principle of the thing!" he protested, "He adds atmosphere! He has sentimental value!"

John looked at him sideways, "The skull's a 'he'?"

"Of course it is! You only have to look at the slightly oblong shape of the cranial vault, the heavy definition of the lower mandible, the protruding supraorbital ridges, not to mention the relatively flat maxilla with little prognathism to know that. You're a doctor, John, determining the gender of a human skull should be as easy as diagnosing a cold; in fact it should be even easier than diagnosing a cold, as there are well over two hundred viruses implicated in the causation of colds, as well as potential overlap of symptoms with other medical problems. There are no such complications in resolving the gender of a skull."

"Of course I should have known that," John agreed dryly, "because we both know I spend the entirety of my copious amounts of spare time staring at the skull, not doing the washing up or updating the blog or running out on cases with you."

Sherlock waved a hand unconcernedly, "All admirable pursuits in their own way, but it would only have taken a minute at most to discern the gender. As ever, my dear Watson, you see but you do not observe."

"Oh yeah?" John grinned, "Well, _my dear Holmes, _you're not doing so great on the observation front yourself."

"What - "

A hand appeared at Sherlock's back and delivered a sharp prod to his ribcage. Sherlock jumped and spun around, one arm already raised in a defensive block, the other coming up flat edged to hit the neck of his attacker; but before it could connect there was a firm hand wrapped around his wrist, halting his arm in midair.

Greg raised a mocking eyebrow, "Nice to know you're ready to defend yourself if the need arises, Sherlock, but I'd place a bit of a higher value on observation and being aware of your surroundings. Stop the attack before it even starts, that sort of thing."

Sherlock snorted and dropped his arm, "John was distracting me."

"That's no excuse."

"Excuse me," Audrey interrupted them smoothly, slipping between Sherlock and Greg to slide the keycard through its slot, unlocking the door.

Through the door of the suite there was a huge main living room with polished wood floors, laid out open plan style complete with kitchen, dining area, and lounge. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed views of native forest in the courtyard below, and a sliding door gave access out onto a balcony. Down the hallway to the left were the bedrooms, all opening off the same side of the hallway so as to have the same forested views out the windows.

Mycroft promptly laid claim to the first bedroom, which had a Super King sized bed.

Sherlock opened his mouth to make some scathing remark, caught John's eye, and closed it without having said anything.

They explored the other rooms and discovered that the second bedroom had another Super King bed, the third room had two Queen sized beds in it, and the fourth also had two Queen beds. All the bedrooms were equipped with en suites, built-in desks, and couches or armchairs.

The remaining men looked at each in silent communication before Greg took the lead and gestured Audrey to the second King room.

"Ladies first."

"Oh - thank you," she accepted the offer with equanimity, moving forward into the room with her handbag and suitcase.

"Now," Greg turned to John, "Are you staying with us? There's more than enough room, you're welcome to if you want."

Sherlock went back into the third bedroom and ducked into the en suite, curious about what was in the drawers to the side. Towels. Boring.

He could hear John sigh out in the corridor, "It's a lot more spacious than Pierce's flat, that's for sure."

"No need to decide yet if you're not ready, take some time and have a think about it. It's not like you're ditching your mates, it's just somewhere to sleep that's more comfortable than the spare room or wherever you're sleeping at Pierce's."

"Couch, actually," was the muted reply.

"What?" Sherlock popped his head out from the en suite.

"I'm sleeping on the couch at Pierce's. They don't have a spare room," John shrugged, "It's much better than the floor, and it's actually very comfortable for being - you know - a couch."

Sherlock made a noise of disinterest and return to prowling the bedroom, leaving John and Greg standing in the doorway.

Greg chuckled, "Well, that settles it then. You're sleeping here. I'll take one room and Sherlock will take the other, you can choose who you want to bunk with."

"I'd better room with Sherlock, someone has to keep an eye on him. Maybe I can convince him to actually sleep at some stage, not that I'm holding out much hope. He's a bleeding insomniac, did you know that? He only sleeps two, maybe three hours a night at most, and even that he finds entirely too easy to ignore when he's busy. It's like sleep is a secondary function for him."

"That's because it _is_ a secondary function, John," Sherlock called impatiently from the other end of the room, "I've told you before, my brain comes before my body. All that matters to me is the work, and without that my brain rots."

"Yeah, well, your body'll rot soon enough if you don't feed it or let it rest, and then where will your precious brain be?"

Sherlock grunted impatiently and didn't respond, instead brushing past John to pick up his bags from the hallway and bring them back into the room.

"Guess we're in this room, then," he heard John murmur to Greg.

"Looks like it. I should go dump my gear next door. Good luck with him."

"Yeah, thanks."

John, of course, didn't have anything to unpack, and as Sherlock's unpacking style consisted of hanging his suits up (_"Is that one of my suits, Sherlock?" "Greg packed this bag, I didn't even know it existed until he threw it at me when we landed in Christchurch; I've no idea why the suit's in there. I certainly didn't have a suit of yours just lying around my room for him to pack by mistake, I have more than enough suits of my own."_) and then either leaving everything else in the bag or strewing it on the floor and then rummaging around for whatever he needed at that particular point in time, they were back out in the living room within ten minutes. Mycroft was already there, sitting cooly in one of the armchairs and admiring the view out the windows.

He looked around as they took a seat on one of the couches, "Ah, there you are, John."

Sherlock grinned at the immediate (_and well-deserved, in his opinion_) look of suspicion on John's face.

"Here I am, yes. Did you need me for something?"

"Yes, I have something to give you," Mycroft pulled a file out from his briefcase and handed it to John, "If you could read this before our meeting this afternoon, please?"

"Meeting?" John looked at Sherlock in alarm.

"Mmm, brother dearest has roped us in to attending an official meeting with the Mayor of Christchurch this afternoon."

"_What?_"

"No need to over react, Doctor Watson. I am in New Zealand in an official capacity - "

Having heard the phrase so often, Sherlock was mouthing the words right along with him.

" - as a representative of Her Majesty's Government; this necessitates a number of official duties - "

"Well, that explains why one of my suits magically appeared in your bag, then," John murmured beneath his breath, and then raised his voice to a normal level, "Yes - alright, Mycroft, I know that. I thought it was just the two of you going to the meeting, though; I mean I'm hardly an official representative of the government or anything. What are you going to introduce me as, 'my younger brother's flatmate'? That'll score you brownie points with the higher-ups, I'm sure."

"I can, of course, introduce you as that if you'd prefer, but I had rather thought that 'Doctor John Watson, M.D., formerly Captain Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Army Medical Corps' might do the trick."

John gaped for a moment, and then said weakly, "Mm, yes, it might at that."

"Detective Inspector Lestrade will be also be accompanying us."

At that moment Greg walked into the room, closely followed by Audrey, "What's that?"

"You will be accompanying Sherlock, John, and myself to the meeting this afternoon. Audrey has other tasks that she will be busy with."

"Not that I don't appreciate being told what to do by a man five years my junior - " Greg gazed steadily at Mycroft until he inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement, "but you had already informed us of that on the plane. Thank you for the reminder, though. I understand I'm to keep these two under control?"

He nodded toward Sherlock and John as he took the third seat on the couch, while Audrey perched on an armchair.

"I'd like to see you try," Sherlock snorted.

John elbowed him, "I think it'll be a bit of a joint effort, to be honest. I've already threatened him with dire consequences if he doesn't behave, but he may have deleted it from his memory bank."

Sherlock shot him an unimpressed look, "Oh I remember. That's heartless and cruel and I shan't like you if you do it."

"Effective, though," John grinned unrepentantly.

Mycroft cleared his throat, "Sherlock, if you could please stop arguing long enough for Doctor Watson to look through the file? thank you."

Sherlock grunted and subsided, leaning back behind John a little in order to read the open file over his shoulder.

"How long is this meeting going to be, anyway?" he heard Greg asked.

"Hard to say," Mycroft replied, "It starts at two thirty; depending how well it goes, we might be done anywhere between three and five o'clock."

In his peripheral vision, Greg grimaced, "Nothing like the prospect of spending a possible two and a half hours in a diplomatic meeting to brighten your day."

"All going to plan, we should be finished easily by four o'clock."

"Oh, that's - well, not _alright, _as such, but it's certainly better."

"Indeed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have matters to discuss with Audrey before we leave for the City."

Mycroft picked up his briefcase and moved to the dining table, and soon he and his assistant were deep in discussion, the table covered in files and papers.

Growing bored of the file - it was exactly the same information that he and Greg had been given on the flight from Dubai - Sherlock wandered down to his and John's room and retrieved a book from his ('_John H Watson, Captain; Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers; RAMC; England', add to that the colour - drab sandy taupe, rather than standard olive green - conclusion, John's spare_) kit bag. He returned to the lounge to find Greg quietly asleep in the corner of the couch and John with his feet up on the coffee table, re-reading the Mayor's profile and the information on Christchurch in preparation for the afternoon's meeting. Mycroft and Audrey were still poring over the documents on the table. Boring.

Picking up his coat from where he'd tossed it across an armchair earlier, Sherlock slid the door to the balcony and slipped out onto it. Ahhh, that was better. The wind was still bitingly cold, but it had died down to a moderate breeze now, which made it rather more bearable. He inhaled long and slow, absorbing the cool air and the fascinating smells from the unfamiliar trees and shrubs in the forested courtyard below. Native bush, then. Glorious. He'd have to explore it later on.

Carefully sliding the door shut behind him (he couldn't care less about Mycroft, and Audrey was still a relatively unknown factor, but neither John nor Greg would much care for the cold, and it was better to not make them needlessly annoyed with him, given the events of the past couple of days), he slipped into his coat and wrapped it tightly around him, then slouched into a chair at the small outdoor table and promptly buried his nose in the book.

The next thing he knew there was a hand shaking his shoulder.

"Oi, genius. Leaving in twenty minutes."

He grunted in acknowledgement, "Just finishing my chapter."

There was a muttered, "yup. Definitely a teenager," as Greg went back inside, leaving the door open.

Sherlock finished up the last two pages of the chapter he was on before retiring inside and heading for the bedroom to dig out a fresh suit. John was in the en suite when he walked in, and had obviously invoked flatmate rights (_"Sherlock, if you keep using my stuff without asking, I won't hesitate to return the favour."_) to borrow Sherlock's things, as he was using a hotel-issue toothbrush and Sherlock's toothpaste to clean his teeth. Sherlock lost no time in changing into a fresh suit and black shirt, glad to be out of his travel-stained and rumpled clothes.

It took a bare thirty seconds of rummaging through the gear on the floor to find the small bottle of cologne that Greg had included with his toiletries; he applied it and then threw it to John as the doctor emerged from the bathroom. Reflexes quick as ever, John caught it almost without looking. He sniffed it cautiously before applying it.

"Subtle but perceptible," Sherlock explained, "it will help make a good impression. Of course, we are now wearing the same cologne - and from the same bottle, even -"  
John made a slight choking noise.  
" - but the chances of anyone apart from Mycroft noticing are less than one in nine hundred. Hardly anyone has a genetic predisposition toward olfactory precision; even less people have the preference or discipline to train it to such a high standard as myself." He glanced at John, "so you don't have to worry about anyone mistaking us for anything more than what we are."

"I - thank you, that's very - " John's brow furrowed, "uh, thoughtful of you."

Sherlock flashed him a blinding smile, "I do try; not often, mind you, but it is certainly within my ability to be 'uh, thoughtful.'"

"You wouldn't happen to have a - no, that's right, you don't wear ties, do you?"

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at John, "Have you ever seen me wear a tie?"

Without waiting for an answer, he continued, "Your deductions are correct. I do not even own a tie, let alone wear one."

"Mmm, thought so. I'll see if Greg has one I can borrow, then."

John slipped next door, leaving the door open. Sherlock ducked into the en suite to brush his teeth, conveniently standing within hearing range of Greg's room.

"Do you have a tie I could borrow, Greg?"

"Why, do we need them?" Greg's voice was startled.

"Don't know - I mean we probably don't, strictly speaking, but it would make a better impression, wouldn't it?"

"In my experience it doesn't make much of a difference, to be honest. I wasn't planning on wearing one, and Sherlock certainly won't. I wouldn't worry about it, John."

"You're probably right. Mycroft will be in his bleeding three piece toff suit with full Windsor tie anyway, that's enough dapper dressing for all of us."

Greg chuckled, "Yeah, there is that. Not to mention he'll be doing most of the talking anyway, thank goodness."

"Good point. Alright, I won't bother with the tie then."

"Five minutes, gentlemen," Audrey called down the hallway.

Sherlock hurriedly rinsed his mouth and slipped out of the en suite to grab his shoes, giving them a quick buff with yesterday's shirt sleeve. John came rushing back from next door, grabbed his suit jacket from where he'd slung it over a chair and slipped it on over the midnight blue shirt. Sherlock put his shoes on and and shrugged into his own jacket, brushing it down for any stray hairs or slight wrinkles.

Out into the living room where Mycroft was waiting ready to leave, Sherlock picked up his mobile from the coffee table and slipped it into his inner jacket pocket. Greg and John arrived almost at the same time, and they were ready to go.

"Where is the meeting, anyway?" John asked on their way down the stairs, "I thought the Town Hall and Convention Centre were damaged too badly in the earthquakes to be able to host any events."

"They are," was Mycroft's reply, "The Town Hall is closed until two thousand and thirteen at the earliest, and the Convention Centre had to be demolished earlier this year. Almost all other conference facilities, such as Riccarton House or Mona Vale, are also closed due to earthquake damage. The meeting is, in fact, at this very hotel."

"At this - oh," John casually retracted the hand that was engaged in pulling his keys out of his pocket, "Well, it is a hotel, I guess having conference facilities makes sense."

"Mmm," Mycroft subtly gestured to the right as they exited the stairs, "We are in the Mainland Room. There will be a short photo opportunity for the media while the introductions are made, then a representative of Ngai Tahu - that is, the local Maori tribe - will carry out a _mihi_ or opening speech of greeting and acknowledgement, after which the media will disperse and we shall be left in peace with the Mayor and one or two of his party."

John exchanged glances with Sherlock, "Doesn't sound too bad."

"Not arduous at all, I assure you, John," Mycroft smiled a smile that was on the cool side of comforting, "It will be over before you know it."

They halted outside the double doors to the conference room, eyeing the media scrum that was loitering on the other side of the hallway. An organiser bearing a clipboard and a professional air came up to them.

"Official representative party for the British Government?"

"We are, yes," Mycroft replied with a polite smile.

"This way, please."

She lead them into the conference room, gesturing them to the middle of the room, "The Mayor and his party will be here shortly."

She departed, leaving them standing awkwardly.

Sherlock absently noted the aesthetically pleasing palette of their shirt colours - himself in black, John in dark blue, Greg in crisp eggshell blue, and Mycroft in his usual three-piece suit with a white shirt - then looked around the room. There was a rectangular conference table to one end, set for eight people with water glasses and high backed power chairs, but other than that the room was empty of furniture. The carpet was a rich shade of taupe, the walls were panelled cream, and there were a few scenic paintings hung at intervals around the perimeter. Floor-length windows at the far end of the room showed a similar forested view to that of their suite.

The organiser came bustling back into the room, followed by three men.

"You've got a minute to get sorted, and then I'll let the media in for their photos and filming, alright? Remember, formal introductions first, then Joseph with the mihi, and then the media will leave you to it."

"We know, Louise," one of the men (_5'11, blonde, modern glasses, unlikely to be the Maori representative, therefore either the Mayor or his aide)_ said patiently, "thank you."

She exited again, leaving the two groups of men to look at each somewhat cautiously.

Mycroft took the lead and stepped forward, "Mycroft Holmes, British Government."

The shorter of the brunette men (_5'9, mid forties, neatly trimmed beard, quiet but powerful presence_) stepped forward, "Rob Barrow, Christchurch Mayor," then, as the doors opened and the media swarmed in, "I think we'd better save the rest for the cameras, don't you?" and flashed a sparkling grin.

Sherlock immediately added _popular with the public, easygoing, good sense of humour_ to his list of character traits. The media took their time setting up various tripods and cameras and flash panels, and then they were ready to go.

Barrow stepped forward to face the cameras, "On behalf of the Government of New Zealand, Prime Minister Johnathan Kay and his Cabinet, Maori King Timiti Paki, and the people of New Zealand and of Christchurch in particular, I'd like to officially welcome the representatives of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second and the British Government to Aotearoa/ New Zealand."

He turned side on to the cameras, facing their group, "I am Robert Barrow, occasional journalist for The Christchurch Press, part-time crew member on any of the numerous Quake Clean Up Teams, and full-time Mayor of the City of Christchurch;" he indicated the blonde with the glasses, "this is my right hand man, Thomas Henderson, photographer, Mayoral Aide, and also on the Quake Clean Up Teams;" and gestured to the elder dark haired man with intense brown eyes, "and Joseph Tahu, Cultural Advisor on the Mayoral staff, _te reo Maori_ translator, and official representative of the _tangata whenua, _the native Maori peoples of Aotearoa/ New Zealand."

Introductions on the New Zealanders' side done, he stepped back in order for Mycroft to take the floor.

"On behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the independent Government of the Republic of Ireland, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Cameron Davids, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland Eamon Kenny, President of the Republic of Ireland Michael O'Doherty, their respective Oireachtas, Cabinets, and Parliaments, the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the people of the Republic of Ireland, I would like to thank the Mayor of Christchurch, his Mayoral Aide, and his Cultural Advisor, as official representatives of the Government of Aotearoa/ New Zealand, for their warm welcome.

"I am Mycroft Holmes, liaison for the British Secret Service and Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland," he indicated Greg, "this is Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command Division at New Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police Service of Greater London," then Sherlock, "Sherlock Holmes, Consultant for Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and also Consulting Detective for New Scotland Yard, specifically working with Detective Inspector Lestrade's team on some of their more difficult cases - "

John moved his foot to press on Sherlock's toes as a muscle ticked in Sherlock's jaw.

" - and Doctor John Watson, M.D., formerly Captain Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Army Medical Corps, and Medical Consultant of both Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Detective Inspector Lestrade's team of New Scotland Yard as a consequence of his partnership - "

The Kiwis blinked just slightly too slowly, such a subtle signal that Sherlock wouldn't have caught it if he wasn't watching them closely - clearly a sign of surprise or reception of new information, but why?

" - with Mr Holmes in their capacity as Specialist Consultants."

Mycroft stepped back from centre stage.

Mayor Barrow took the lead again, "_Koro_ Tahu, would you lead us in a _mihi_ for the opening of this meeting, please."

Joseph Tahu stepped forward, opened his mouth, and began to speak.

_Oh, it was magnificent, it was exquisite, it was singing and chanting and formal speaking all rolled into one. _He would have to - _have to, lock it in, must learn Maori, the native language of the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, - _he would simply have to learn this beautiful, beautiful language_. _Perhaps he could approach Joseph Tahu, the Cultural Advisor on the Mayoral staff/ _te reo Maori_ translator/ official representative of the _tangata whenua, _the native Maori peoples of Aotearoa/ New Zealand; and oh he wondered feverishly what _te reo_ meant, whether_ tangata whenua _had a literal or even close to literal translation. This would be an utterly, utterly fascinating study.

Sherlock's eyes fluttered for a moment; his breath caught in his throat at the sheer poetic power of this language; but he fought the urge to close his eyes fully - doing so would be the best way of increasing his auditory memory, but would certainly be seen as a sign of disrespect by the host government's party, even though it was anything but - and stood stock still, listening.

"_Ehara ahau i te tangata mohio ki te korero, otira e tiki ana kia mihi atu kia mihi mai,_" and then in the next breath, smoothly, what was presumably the translation for non-Maori speakers, "I am not a knowledgeable person at speaking, but it is right that we exchange greetings.

"_Korihi te manu, takiri mai i te ata, ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea; Tihei Mauri Ora!_ _Tuhia ki te rangi, tuhia ki te whenua, tuhia ki te ngakau i nga tangata: ko te me nui ko te aroha. Tuhia ki te rangi, tuhia ki te whenua, tuhia ki te ngakau i nga tangata: Tihei Mauri Ora! _The bird sings, the morning has dawned, the day has broken; Behold, there is Life! Write it in the sky, write it in the land, write it in the heart of the people: the greatest thing is love. Write it in the sky, write it in the land, write it in the heart of the people: Behold, there is Life!

"_Ko te wehi ki te Kaihanga, Atua. Me whakakororia tona ingoa i nga wa katoa. _Fear and respect to the Creator, God. Glorify his name for all time."

Oh, of course - native Maori mythology would have given way to Christian ideology as the missionaries went among the natives, teaching them English and the concepts they valued as Truth.

"_Tena koutou i te tatou tini mate,_ _koutou kua wheturangitia ki te korowai o Ranginui, koutou kua wehe atu ki te po, ki te tua o te Arai, ki te okiokinga i o tatou tupuna. Haere, haere, haere. _Greetings to our many dead, you who have been adorned as stars in the heavens, you who have departed to the night, to beyond the Veil, to the resting place of our ancestors. Farewell, farewell, farewell."

He could see John swallow compulsively beside him, blinking slightly too rapidly. Respecting and farewelling the dead would strike a chord with him, of course; Sherlock had never dared ask how many friends he'd lost during his time in Afghanistan.

"_Mauria mai i o koutou tini mate; hoki atu ki te Kaihanga, ki te po nui, ki te po roa, ki te po kahore he otinga; hoki atu ki te Kaihanaga. Haere, haere, haere. _Carry your many dead; return to the Creator, to the large night, to the long night, to the night without end; return to the Creator. Farewell, farewell, farewell.

"_Apiti hono, tatai hono: ratou kua wehe atu ki te po, tatou e tu ana ki te ao. Apiti hono, tatai hono: te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, te hunga ora ki te hunga ora. Apiti hono, tatai hono. _The lines are drawn: those that have departed into the night, we who stand in the light. The lines are drawn: the dead to the dead, the living to the living. The lines are drawn.

"_E nga manuhiri, haere mai, haere mai, haere mai. _To our visitors, welcome, welcome, welcome._ Haere mai i raro i te korowai o te Rangimarie, _welcome under the cloak of Peace. _Ka nui te koa me te hari ki te kite i a koutou. _Great is the joy and pleasure to see you. _Haere mai, haere mai, haere mai, _welcome, welcome, welcome.

"_Tena koutou ki a koutou kua tae mai nei ki te awhi i a matou i tenei wa. _Greetings to you who have arrived to help us at this time.

"_Waiho i te toipoto kaua i te toiroa. _Let us join together and not fall apart. _Whatungarongaro he tangata,_ _toitu he whenua. Ki te tuohu koe me maunga teitei. _People pass, but land is forever. If you bow your head, let it be to a mighty mountain. _Whaia e koe ki te iti kahurangi. _Seek the treasure you value most dearly.

"_E nga manuhiri, haere mai, haere mai, haere mai. _To our visitors, welcome, welcome, welcome. _Tena koutou, tena koutout, tena koutou katoa - _greetings, greetings, greetings to you all."

Joseph Tahu stepped back to allow the Mayor to take the lead again.

"If you would like to step forward, gentlemen, we will now conduct a formal _hongi_ ceremony; this consists of greeting each person in the other party with a handshake and the traditional Maori greeting of _hongi_, which is simply a brief touching of the forehead and nose. The _hongi _involves the sharing of the _ha, _the breath of life, and also signifies the blending of our peoples, our cultures, our _mana _and power. Through the exchange of _hongi_, you are no longer considered _manuhiri_ or visitors, but _tangata whenua, _people of the land. As _tangata whenua_ you will share in the responsibilities and duties of the New Zealand people for the suration of your stay and for any visits in the future. This is a solemn ceremony, and is conducted in silence."

Sherlock saw John shift his weight uneasily beside him. He wondered at the probable train of John's thoughts (_traditional claptrap, native nonsense; sharing the breath of life sounds very communist - I wonder what else they share? Money? Land? Women?_); though perhaps he was doing John an injustice and his thoughts were not nearly that extreme. The man had served in the Armed Services with New Zealanders both Pākehā and Maori, after all; he was bound to have seen some traditional rituals before a battle or during the aftermath, when men lay wounded and dying all around, whether they were English prayers or Maori practices; these would have tempered his innate skeptical views on any religious or cultural rituals.

And there was that time Sherlock had asked him _if you were dying, if you were being murdered, in your last few seconds what would you say?_ and John's answer: _Please God, let me live. _John's own experiences, then, would also soften the hard edge of his dislike; Sherlock was being overly harsh in that case, almost judgemental, even; the shifting of weight was simply was from standing so long and from the nervousness of partaking in an unknown ritual.

Because that was all it was, really, simply another ritual, inherent to the culture, rich in meaning and power; something of no less significance to the Kiwis than the making of tea to any Englishman. It was possible it had even more meaning - steeping tea leaves wasn't exactly seen as an exchange of breath, of life, of power; it certainly wasn't seen as an unofficial adoption into the _tangata whenua_, the people of the land.

From what Mayor Rob Barrow had said (_through the exchange of hongi, you are no longer considered manuhiri or visitors, but tangata whenua, people of the land,_) that was exactly what this ceremony achieved: sharing culture, sharing breath, saying _welcome, you are welcome, there are no strangers here; this exchange of life, of breath, makes us brothers. _In much the same way as warriors in old times used blood rituals to strengthen the bond between men (_you share my blood, which is life; we are blood brothers_) this was something of a breath ritual (_you share my breath, which is life; we are breath brothers_)_._

John was nudging him forward toward the line of the three New Zealand officials.

_Alright. Time to observe, to gather data so that you don't embarrass yourself._

Mycroft was just disengaging his hand from the Mayor's; Greg was standing between Sherlock and Mycroft, beginning the _hongi _with the Mayoral Aide, Thomas Henderson.

_Meet their eyes, firm handshake, maintain both hand and eye contact as you lean in; touch forehead and nose briefly, just enough pressure but not too much, hold for the count of one-two and remember to breathe, exchange the ha, the breath of life, then lean back and drop hand. Easy, at least in theory._

And there was John nudging him again. Time to put those observations into practice.

He stepped forward until he was standing in front of Henderson. Eye contact (_blue eyes, not a weak pale blue but a strong mid-blue, fairly consistent colouring across the iris with slightly darker colouring toward the centre_), handshake (_firm and official, feel the slide of metacarpals and phalanges under muscle and tendons and skin_), now lean forward (_maintain hand and eye contact_)_, _touch forehead and nose at the same time (_warm skin, warm human contact, intriguing_), breathe (_one-two, long enough to exchange the ha, the breath of life, but not long enough to make it awkward_), lean back and disengage.

Nod acknowledgement and move on to the Mayor. Simple, solemn, and really rather enthralling.

Mayor Robert Barrow had brown eyes that bordered on hazel, with little flecks of green dotting the inner perimeter of the iris; Cultural Advisor Joseph Tahu also had brown eyes, deep and intense, almost black in the right light: most likely a genetic trait of Maori people.

And then it was over, John had finished his own _hongi_ with the three New Zealanders, the media had succeeded in getting enough film sections and still photographs of the speeches and the _hongi _ceremony. Cameras were packed away, tripods taken down, and the swarm left the seven men in peace.

Mycroft gestured to the conference table with an urbane smile, "Shall we, gentlemen?"

They sat at the table in much the same order as the _hongi_ lines had been - Sherlock between John and Greg along one side, with Mycroft beside Greg; and the Mayor between his Aide and Cultural Advisor on the other side of the table.

The Mayor took a sip of water from his glass and leaned back in his chair with a sigh, "Ah, that's better. Now that all the formalities have been observed - " he cracked his neck, "please, call me Rob."

Henderson lifted a finger in greeting, "Tom. We're a pretty casual bunch, really."

Tahu nodded, "Joseph."

Sherlock slanted a glance toward John (_awfully familiar all of a sudden, aren't they?_) and received a mouth twitch and half-raised eyebrow in reply (_I told you in my letter, everyone's very laid back. And we did just take part in an adoption ceremony of sorts, didn't we?_).

Down the table, Mycroft inclined his head, "Mycroft."

"Greg," with the LestradeTM Restrained Friendly Smile Mk I.

Sherlock managed a stiff smile, "Sherlock."

"John," the only one of them to manage anything even half-casual, showing off that same easy grin that made him so popular with the women.

Tom's lips twitched, but he covered an almost-grin by lifting his water glass to drink. No doubt he was thinking something along the lines of _stiff Britons, they need to loosen up. _Sherlock restrained himself with difficulty from making a remark.

"Always nice to get a visit from the Mothership, as it were," Rob grinned, "Kia ora and well met."

"Thank you," replied Mycroft smoothly, "for the very warm welcome. It has been much appreciated."

Sherlock could feel his hearing start to blur (_"hearing doesn't blur, Sherlock, don't be ridiculous. It might go fuzzy or garbled or out of focus, but it doesn't blur. That's sight you're thinking of,"_) as soon as Mycroft started speaking; and seeing the official officials - the Mayor, his Aide, the Cultural Advisor, Mycroft, Greg, and John - so really, everyone except him - sit up straight in their chairs and lean forward into 'alert' stance as soon as Mycroft changed the tone from back-country casual to bureaucratic talkative didn't help the fuzziness to go away.

Time flowed. He surfaced occasionally, the first time to hear:

"We empathise strongly with Christchurch in her hour of need," typical political speak from Mycroft, and then softly from John,

"It's... it's like a war zone out there, in the Red Zone. Made me feel like I was back in Afghanistan for a moment... all those gaping holes where buildings used to be, the debris and building dust everywhere, the area absolutely deserted... it was just crazy."

The second time was much the same:

"Of course, we aim to foster positive relations between the Crown and her Colonies..."

Mycroft was still speaking; how the man went on! Sherlock zoned out again.

The third time, he came back to reality in response to a nudge from John.

"Well, thank you very much for your time, Rob."

"No worries, Mycroft, anytime. I hope the rest of your stay here in New Zealand goes well for you."

"I'm sure it will, thank you. Tom, Joseph, thank you as well."

Murmurs of thanks and appropriate replies from all sides of the table, and then the British party stood and took their leave.

"Did you get any of that?" was John's quiet question as they mounted the stairs.

"Not consciously; I heard something about empathising with Christchurch and fostering positive relations, but that was it. I'll have the record in my reserve memory bank for a couple of weeks, though: I can pull up the file if you need clarification on something."

"No," immediate and vehement, "no, that won't be necessary, it wasn't important. The whole meeting, in fact, wasn't important."

"Bureaucratic blather," Greg chipped in acerbically from behind them, "pointless and useless."

"Not the worse meeting I've ever been in," John said thoughtfully, "the Kiwis certainly are a lot more casual than the top brass in the British Army, and I actually got to sit down for this one instead of being ordered to stand sentry at full salute outside the door for three hours. But it still wasn't exactly enjoyable, that's for sure."

"At least media briefings at the Met actually have a point to them," muttered Greg, "what's happening, who the targets are, that sort of thing. This was just a whole lot of absolutely _nothing_ couched in fancy politic speak and far too many words."

"There is a certain art to saying nothing," remarked Mycroft, "and you can often tell the experience and confidence of a man by how he chooses to say it. There is a certain style to it, combinations of words used in place of saying specific things, even certain word usages that only the very experienced used. Barrow was not excessively experienced in the language of diplomatic meetings, though part of that may simply have been the New Zealand culture and lack of extreme formality; he was, however, very confident in his own abilities as a leader and as Mayor."

Sherlock yawned loudly and conspicuously as they turned down the hall to their suite, "Fascinating as that may be..."

"In future I believe I may leave you off the guest list, Sherlock," Mycroft replied with a bite of impatience in his voice, "You certainly didn't contribute anything of worth to the conversation; though I probably should thank you for not embarrassing me by verbally dissecting the Mayor and his party, nor for simply standing up and walking out of the meeting halfway through."

"You did make me promise to be on my best behaviour, brother."

"Yes, I did, but you never do keep a promise unless it serves your own purposes."

"And what's to say this didn't serve my own purposes?"

At Mycroft's cool laugh, Sherlock grinned suddenly; it was a startlingly warm gesture in the face of his brother's usual incitement.

"Well," he admitted, "John may have given me some added incentive to not muck things up for you."

Greg cocked a curious eyebrow at John as he swiped the keycard, "I'd be pretty interested in hearing about this, ah, incentive, John. I've been trying to get him to behave for six years and hadn't hit on a foolproof method in all that time, and now you've found one within a year of knowing him. Good going, mate."

John grinned, "Cheers, Greg. It's fairly easy, actually, you just have to figure out what he values the most and then hold it over his head for the duration."

"If you're quite done discussing my inherent weaknesses..." Sherlock interrupted, brushing past them to pick up his book from the coffee table, "what's the plan for the rest of the day?"

John flopped onto the couch, "I need to go back to the flat at some stage and pick up my gear. They'll be wanting to meet you lot, too, having heard so much about you."

"Oh no," Greg groaned, "let me guess - the horrifying mad scientist of a flatmate, his creepy stalker older brother, and the workaholic cop?"

John laughed, "Not that bad, no. I've been quite complimentary, actually. It's more like the genius flatmate, his equally genius if debatably even more annoying older brother, and the decent cop who's the most sane out of all of us and a good chap for a pint at the pub every second Saturday."

"Oh, well then," Greg slouched in his armchair, "that's not so bad. By all means, let us meet this army mate of yours and his flatmates."

"We could pick up some food and take it round for dinner," John suggested, "it's four fifteen now, say we left at five, stopped at a supermarket on the way? They live over in Addington, it's about a half an hour drive."

"I've no objections to that plan of action. Sherlock?"

"Fine with me," was his answer, followed by a muttered, "doing something is exponentially preferable to doing nothing."

"Great," Greg turned toward the dining table, where Mycroft was once again seated with his papers and files, "Do you want to come too, Mycroft? Meet the locals, as it were?"

"I'm afraid the creepy stalker of an older brother won't be accompanying you, no," Mycroft said smoothly, "Audrey and I have other plans of importance for the evening. Thank you for the offer, though."

In the privacy of his own head, Sherlock conjectured very rudely and, knowing his brother as he did, also highly inaccurately about the nature of their 'plans', but forbore to comment.

John made up for his silence with a wry, "So much for fostering positive relations between the Crown and her Colonies," that was almost but not quite beneath his breath.

Mycroft made a point of ignoring him.

"That's that decided, then," Greg said, "Excellent."

Sherlock opened his book and read.


End file.
